


The Second Most Dangerous Man

by Littlebrainattic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 23:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebrainattic/pseuds/Littlebrainattic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Days like this were nothing new; days where everything seemed to remind him of Sherlock. What was new was the feeling of detachment." After three years of absence, Sherlock reaches out to John when he receives a threat directed toward John's live-in girlfriend, Mary. As they struggle together to discern the motivation and objectives of the villainous Sebastian Moran, bodies begin to pile up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Empty Grave

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a crosspost from where I'd originally hosted the work, Fanfiction.net, just after Reichenbach aired. This version is just broken up a little differently chapter-wise and I've fixed some (although I'm sure not all) of the spelling/grammatical errors. Thanks for reading!

 

* * *

 “Dr. Watson, you are a miracle worker. Really, you are.”

She clutched the child’s hand in her own, her whole continence exposed to the doctor like a book open to its cracked spine, spread wide where it fell off the shelf; The gaping smile screamed her relief while tension in her brow whispered a nagging of worry that wasn’t likely to go away until they left the hospital, until she returned to her two jobs with equally meager salaries and at least one handsy boss. Until her son was home microwaving his dinners and eating them alone in front of the telly.

Dr. John Watson shook his head, as if he could rattle the thoughts out his ears. He felt guilty, like he’d been caught snooping. But it wasn’t something he could turn off. In fact, it wasn’t really something he could turn on. It just happened on occasion, a flash of something behind the thick veils we shroud ourselves in. He thought about what Mycroft had told him, and had it really been five years ago? About walking with Sherlock, and seeing the battlefield. He wondered what Sherlock saw: a world of naked individuals with nothing to hide behind? A world made ugly by all the ugly truths of its inhabitants? Was that why he did it?

Mostly though, John wondered when it stopped hurting so much to think about Sherlock, and he wondered what that meant.

“Nothing,” he said. “I mean, it was nothing, Ms. Pope. Just doing my job.”

“When he fell of that roof, I thought,” She opened her mouth but no words came out. A chill ran down John’s spine.

“He’ll be fine, Ms. Pope,” John kept his voice level and slipped his left hand the pocket of his white coat, lest it betray him with the tremor he hadn’t quite been able to vanquish. The right hand tightened involuntarily on his cane. She wasn’t listening, though, just talking. Not necessarily to John, but to herself, to her prone child, to the otherwise empty room John occupied.

“I should have been watching him more closely. I don’t even know how he got up there. I should have been watching.” Her voice broke. “I’m a terrible mother.”

“You’re not,” John said forcibly, and her head snapped up, eyes meeting his. “It was an accident. Kids…kids do stuff like this all the time. They don’t understand…don’t realize how easily and finally they can be hurt. And they don’t know what it’s like to be left behind…alone.”

She smiled up at him, eyes watery beneath her tight brow. “You’re so good with children, Dr. Watson. You must have one of your own.”

“No,” John said. “Just a friend who was very childish.”

She laughed, the force of it propelling some tears over her round cheeks. John bowed out of the room, closing the door behind him. He let out the breath he’d been holding and leaned on the wall outside the door, waiting for one of his usual, visceral responses to the memories that clawed from the back of his brain where he kept them quashed to the inside of his eyelids, where every time he blinked he could see that damn bloody face, those dull eyes. But there was nothing this time, and John didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry.

“Dr. Watson,” a soft voice interrupted his thoughts, and John found that his feet had carried him unbidden to his office before being intercepted by Rebecca, his secretary. She was wearing her typical reserved attire, a turtle neck and long skirt, but John knew that it was meant to hide a large back tattoo that extended to the base of her neck. She’d claim that it was an unfortunate relic from her younger days, but she went out often enough that it affected her work and he guessed that she didn’t wear those jumpers when she did. “You had a call.”

“Who from?” John asked, glancing at his watch. It was past 10 and his shift had ended at 9. Mary was probably already in bed, and John longed to join her there, asleep or otherwise. He wanted to sleep and to not dream. He wanted to end this game of Russian roulette his brain was playing, armed with memories, waiting for the one that will break him.

“A girl named Molly Hooper. Said she works in the morgue at St. Bart’s. Said you’d know her.”

Rebecca held out a slip of paper with a phone number and extension written in her crisp and precise hand. Beneath were the words: URGENT. CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY.

John entered his office, closing the door behind him. He sat in the plush chair behind his desk, dropping his cane to the floor, and reached for the phone. Before he could stop himself, he knocked it forcibly from the desk, the receiver falling out of its cradle and scattering across the floor. “Goddamn this day,” he informed the fallen telephone.

“Alright in there, Dr. Watson?” came Rebecca’s voice with a soft knock at the door.

“Fine! I’m fine, just dropped the phone.”

He heard the click of her heels returning to her desk and limped to where the phone had landed. He stood, phone in one fisted hand, number crumpled in the other, leaning heavily on the windowsill and pressing his forehead on the cold glass of the window. Days like this were nothing new; days where everything seemed to remind him of Sherlock. What was new was the feeling of detachment. It seemed that he was finally following the advice thrown at him constantly over the past 3 years, whether consciously or not, to forget and to move on.

That was how he knew that he would call Molly back. There was a time when he wouldn’t have, when he _couldn’t_ have. He avoided Lestrade for a year after it happened, but they’d started seeing each other since then for the occasional pint and shallow conversation. Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, he’d seen frequently after it happened, but less so as of late, and that also felt like letting go. Molly, though, he hadn’t seen or spoken to since the funeral. She was Sherlock’s, like the skull and the dressing gowns and the lab equipment, and like those things he longed to pack her away in an unmarked box and forget that she’d ever been a part of his life, however tangentially. Or at least, he used to feel that way. Now he wondered about her, wondered about how she’d gotten along without Sherlock. He thought for the first time about how hard that must have been on her. And he was curious as to what was so urgent that she called him at night, at work, after not speaking for three years.

She answered on the second ring, voice breathless. “Dr. Watson?”

“John,” he amended. “My secretary gave me your message. Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, it’s—” There was a pause and rustle of movement. “I mean, it’s not fine. Look, can you come to St. Bart’s? Tonight, please? It’s an emergency.”

“Molly, I—” John couldn’t suppress the shudder as he considered her request, wondering whether he should be disappointed or relieved that his anxieties about that place hadn’t entirely subsided. There was another rustle on her end, and John got the distinct impression that she was not alone at the receiver. “I, um, don’t think that would be a very good idea. I haven’t been there…in a while. And I just don’t think it’s…I don’t think I can.”

There was a long pause on the other line and Molly returned, this time with her voice low whisper and echoing, as though she were holding her hand around the receiver.

“Please Dr.—John. You have to know that I understand. I wouldn’t be asking you here if it wasn’t important, and I wouldn’t be asking you here if I didn’t know that you could come.”

“All right, Molly,” John said finally. “All right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

* * *

John felt like he was chest deep in quicksand, crushing the breath from his lungs and hindering limbs as he struggled to exit the taxi before the familiar building. He wondered if it would be too much to ask the cabbie’s help in prying his fingers from the edge of the door, as they seemed unwilling to relinquish their position. Finally, he freed himself and took a small step towards the building. Behind him, the cab sped off, clearly believing him to be a nutter.

_Don’t look up_ , he told himself. _Don’t look down._

But of course, he looked up and he could see Sherlock, that damn coat flapping in the wind, one hand reaching towards him and the other holding a phone to his ear. ‘ _That’s what people do, don’t they?’_ the specter spoke, voice thick with emotion. _‘Leave a note.’_

And he looked down, and found the niche in the pavement where his blood had pooled. The blood remained when they took the body away, even though he’d lost so much, and really he needed it more than the pavement. But they’d left it there and they’d left John there, sitting beside the puddle. Two spots on the side of the road, too raw and exposed to be much use to anyone.

John hurried into the building, as quickly as if he were being chased by something more substantial than his past. He tried to remember the way to the morgue; it wasn’t a path he’d navigated alone before. He regretting coming; he’d forgotten how ingrained the memories were here, as though the vast walls had protected them from time itself. This was the building where they’d met, and worked, and said goodbye. He found himself expecting to see the swish of fabric ahead of him, as Sherlock turned a corner John hadn’t even spotted, and yelled in his clipped fashion, for John to hurry up, perhaps including a jab at his stature.

Finally, he came to the familiar door. He pushed the door in, eyes scanning the room. The drawers were all closed and the long tables empty, thank god, but Molly was nowhere in sight.

“Molly?” he said, voice echoing loudly in the vast space. “It’s John.”

He was starting to worry. She’s said it was an emergency, but she didn’t sound like she was in any trouble. He found himself looking around again for anything she might have left for him; a note or some kind of clue. He felt around the underside of the tables and searched the desks, but made a conscious decision not to look in any of the drawers. Maybe it was selfish, but if Molly was in one of those he certainly didn’t want to be the person to discover it. Finally, he made it to the window on the far wall. It was partially open, and in a small metal bowl on the sill there were four cigarettes, three smoked down to the filter and a forth that had been stubbed out half-smoked. The embers were still warm.

His hand turn to lead and it fell onto the sill as he tried to return the cigarette, knocking the bowl to the ground and littering his pants and the floor with ashes. The loud clatter of the metal bowl on the floor was echoed by a door opening. The door that John had just entered. He didn’t turn around. He could hear footsteps as they approached; not all the way, maybe just halfway across the room. Familiar footsteps, too familiar. The footsteps he would once have followed anywhere.

“Molly,” John said flatly. “I’m sorry to see you’ve taken up chain-smoking.”

“John.”

The voice was like a dagger, straight to John’s bad leg. It collapsed beneath him and he barely caught the sill in time to steady himself. His cane fell to the floor beside the bowl. The man behind him took two steps closer.

“Don’t!” John cried out, louder than he’d anticipated, yet somehow not loud enough. The sound of his own words seemed drowned out by the rapid beating of his heart. “Don’t come any closer.”

The steps halted, and for a long moment, no one spoke. And in that room, surrounded by death, John had never been more aware of how _alive_ he was. Every cell of his body was screaming at him, and he knew that just feet behind him, Sherlock Holmes was standing there, equally alive, every cell alive.

_That asshole._

“For months,” John opened his mouth and let the words pour out. Words he’d never said to Mary, or Mrs. Hudson, or even his therapist. “For months, I thought you were still alive. I was convinced, and I don’t even know why. I mean, I saw it. I saw all of it and I…I took your _pulse_. I looked at your _eyes_. Your _face_. It was impossible, but you’re Sherlock Holmes, right? Sherlock Bloody Holmes, and I really thought…I didn’t touch your things, but then Mrs. Hudson started packing them in boxes while I was at work, and then one day Mycroft came and took it all away.” John paused for breath, keenly aware that he was blubbering. Still, he trusted the man to pick out the relevant details, as he always had. “I moved out of Baker Street, two-and-a-half years ago.”

“John, turn around. Please.”

John bent slowly and gathered his cane from the floor, leaning on it heavily as he turned around. He kept his back upright and rigid, and looked into pale eyes, wide set above sharp cheekbones and below a creased brow. His hair was buzzed short and he wore a hoodie and jeans. He looked like a completely different person, but he wasn’t. John let out a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and Sherlock started, though his face remained unchanged. John watched the pale eyes scan over his body, jumping between points of interest, and imagined what his deductions would be.

_The cane is back, clearly a sedentary lifestyle doesn’t suit your nerves._

_Ugh, Pediatrics, John? Really? Children are so boring._

_Still avoiding the barber? You really need to get over your fear of people holding scissors so close to your head. I swear, you’d be braver if it were a gun._

_Your hands are shaking. Is that one of those trauma things, or have you been joining Harry at the watering hole?_

“John, I’m so—”

“For what?” John shouted. He began to pace, free hand clenching and unclenching spastically. “What are you sorry for right now, but not yesterday, or the day before that? What are you sorry for now that your weren’t sorry about last month, or last year? What…what were you sorry for three years ago on that rooftop? Why did you do it Sherlock? Why? _How_?”

“Well,” Sherlock paused to consider, before his face brightened considerably. John supposed that this was more his speed; the lavish reveal, then take a bow and wait for applause. No need to revel in the emotional cost. No need to take part in the cleanup efforts. Just leave your puddle on the pavement and count on everyone else to watch their step. “I suppose ‘how’ would be the simpler question to answer, so let’s start with that shall we?”

“No,” John said quickly. “Never mind. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” John began heading towards the door, head down, talking quickly. “You know, I’m glad you’re alive, Sherlock. Really I am. I just…I can’t look at you.”

A hand shot out in front of him, planting itself with fingers spread against the polished metal door, blocking his escape.

“Why, then,” Sherlock said plainly. “I did it to save _you_. You, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade. Moriarty’s men would have killed the three of you unless they saw me jump. They had to believe I was dead, which meant that you had to believe I was dead. You needed to witness it, otherwise you would never have believed. Even with all that, you still didn’t believe it did you? Not at first anyway.”

“Why did you say those other things?” John hesitated, almost surprised by how fresh the feeling of betrayal felt after all these years. “About being a fraud? You must have known I wouldn’t believe them.”

“I wanted you too, though. I wanted to make it easier for you to…hate me. I wanted you to believe it, almost as much as I didn’t want you to.” Sherlock pulled his hand away and took a few steps back from the door. Of course, by then it must have been obvious to him that John was no longer going to leave.

“How?” John said at last.

“There was a man whom Moriarty employed to kidnap those children. An American, hand-picked for his striking resemblance to me. Mycroft tracked him down shortly after the case was closed, and he was killed in the ensuing struggle. I had a few ideas about what Moriarty was planning. He had discussed a fall when he came for tea. A fall from grace, perhaps: the utter destruction of my life’s work, of my reputation. But that wouldn’t be enough. He needed to complete the game. My own fall then, in a very literal sense. Molly dressed the American’s corpse in identical clothes and waited at a window on the upper floor for my signal. By then I had cogitated a fairly complete picture of what would happen. He would threaten you, of course, and I would comply with his requests. After all, friends protect people, right? The only problem was that Moriarty had to die as well. He would know at a glance that the body wasn’t mine. Mycroft set up snipers in the surrounding buildings, but in the end we had no need for them.” He face went dark and his mouth puckered, as if he’d bitten into something unpleasant. “I asked you to keep your eyes fixed on me. Molly dropped the body before we were even off the phone. Everyone else was looking at him, and you were looking at me. I had a brace that I’d secured to the roof and when I jumped off the building I swung into the open window where Molly waited, out of your line of sight.”

“Molly knew, Mycroft knew. Who else?”

“No one else,” Sherlock said, fidgeting guiltily. “I know you don’t want to hear it, and perhaps you don’t believe me, but I truly am sorry. It may not seem possible; however I do have some understanding of what you must have gone through. I stepped off that roof because I knew that I couldn’t survive the same ordeal, but you are stronger than me, John. I hope that one day you will forgive me. For what I’ve done, and for what I am about to do.”

“About…to do?”

“John, I was always planning on revealing myself to you and attempting to salvage our friendship, once the danger had passed. Moriarty’s men were still around, still loyal to their shadowy king. Many believed that he was still alive. Mycroft and I have been tracking down and neutralizing the primary agents, while others have simply lost faith and fallen off the radar. One had remained, both loyal and active, and just out of our reach. Sebastian Moran, the second most dangerous man in London.”

“Second?” John asked. “Isn’t Moriarty dead? Who’s the first then?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow and smirked. John could barely stifle his groan. “You know, I’m surprised you didn’t just float away on that massive inflated ego of yours.”

There was a moment of utter silence, and they burst into laughter simultaneously. It sounded so right to John’s ears; a perfect harmony he’d missed so much, without realizing it. Sherlock stopped suddenly, a somber expression falling over his face like a shadow.

“He knows,” Sherlock said. “Moran. He knows that I’m alive. He’s going to come after you.”

“How do you know?” John asked. The joy was gone now, replaced by an odd, hollow sensation and a nagging feeling that he was missing something. Some important detail.

“These were left at the supposedly secure location I had been staying at, under an alias of course. No stamp. They were delivered by hand.”

John reached into the envelope and removed the thick stack of photographs. He flipped through them, brain struggling to process what he saw. He was dimly aware of pictures falling to the floor and Sherlock repeating his name urgently. Each photo was of the same woman, her curly red hair tied up loosely in some and down in others (John always liked it when she left her hair down). There was even one of her waiting outside the cinema. He’d been late for their date and she was mad about missing the previews, but she’d still left her hand on his knee during the whole film. And in every single photo, her beautiful face was framed by crosshairs.

“John,” Sherlock had somehow gotten his hands on John’s shoulder and was shaking him gently. “John!”

John pushed Sherlock away, both men stumbling backwards by the unexpected force of it.

“Mycroft has enacted a 24/7 protection detail,” Sherlock said levelly. “The best security this country has to offer, being closely guided by the most dangerous man in London,” he added the last with a smirk that John found himself unable to return. “I will protect you. Both of you.”

“Of course,” John said, nodding. “Of course you will. Oh God,” John fell to his knees among the scattered photographs. “This is all so much to take in at once. It’s too much. Can I please just…”

“Yes,” Sherlock answered the unspoken question, helping John to his feet and leading him out to the empty corridor.

John watched his back. Even without the trademark coat and bushy hair, the figure he cut was unmistakable, and as John fell into stride beside him, despite everything else that had happened that night, he felt whole again.

* * *

Mary didn’t stir as John entered their bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed for a while, watching her chest rise and fall with her soft breaths. Harry called her his angel, the one who’d rescued him when he was at his lowest point, taught him how to live again when he’d forgotten.

“Love you,” he said, brushing a strand of her wild hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to her forehead.

“Mmm,” she smiled lightly. “You’re home late. Come to bed, love.”

“In a minute,” he said with a chuckle and pressed another kiss to her lips.

He left the room and crossed to the study. It was the only room they hadn’t finished unpacking. Boxes of books obscured an empty book shelf. A plush leather loveseat was covered by misshapen packages and bags. There were other boxes, tucked into corners where they’d meant to remain. These were the boxes he hadn’t unpacked at his first room he’d taken alone or the first flat he’s shared with Mary. _Mycroft didn’t want these_ , Mrs. Hudson had said. _But I couldn’t bear to throw them out_. John opened the first box and found the skull nestled in the folds of a dark blue scarf. There was a pair of leather gloves that were too slim and too long for John’s hands, the Eschenbach magnifier, the pocketknife Sherlock had used to deface their mantle, much to Mrs. Hudson’s horror. There were notebooks, some lightly used and many filled with his tiny, illegible writing. John removed each item from the box and ran his fingers over it, as if he could commit each piece to memory.

It was silly really, mourning now when he discovered that Sherlock had been alive all this time, but as he held each item he came to realize how different things were now. Sherlock was might be back, but he had changed, and John had changed. Things would never be the way they were, they never could be, because John didn’t trust Sherlock anymore. And all those precious, painful memories that he’s stored but never touched, the wounds he’d teased into great sores, they meant nothing because Sherlock was alive. It would all be overwritten by their chilly new friendship, by his promise of protection without any recompense. And finally, John let his tears fall.


	2. Part 2: The Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He supposed Sherlock would have looked out of place anywhere, considering John had though him dead for the past three years, but he looked particularly out of place on their paisley couch, wedged between two piles of throw pillows, expression like he was seated in a waiting room about to undergo an unpleasant medical procedure. Not like Baker Street, where everything had screamed of his presence, where every object bore his mark. Scratches on the table, suspicious stains on the floor and walls, socks dug out from behind the radiator. Even the couch had seemed to perpetually sag in the middle, and though still occupied despite the passage of time.

* * *

John awoke with a start to the sound of glass shattering, after precious few hours of fitful sleep. He barely spare a glance at the alarm clock (6:44 AM; Mary must have just gotten up) as he raced from the bedroom to the presumed source of the noise, somewhere between the kitchen and living room. Sure enough, he found Mary standing at the threshold with her hand still on the light switch, her face a perfect facsimile of complete and utter surprise. At her feet knelt Sherlock, still in the clothes he’d been wearing at St. Bart’s, gathering the pieces of a broken mug from a puddle of tea on the floor.

“John,” she said in a hushed whisper, as if fearing to scare the specimen who’d appeared before them. “John, isn’t that…”

“Yeah,” John confirmed. “We, ahh, ran into each other last night. Give that here,”  
 he addressed the man, taking the shards from his hand and turning to enter the kitchen. Mary followed him.

“I don’t understand,” she said, shooting a suspicious glance over her shoulder. John could see that the lithe figure remained close to the doorframe, examining a set of pictures hung on the wall as an obvious front to his eavesdropping. Or perhaps he was simply doing both at the same time. “I mean, isn’t he…wasn’t he…dead?”

“Yes,” John said. “I mean, no obviously. But I had been lead to believe that was the case.”

John threw the ceramic a bit too forcefully into the bin. He didn’t know whether the shock had worn off a bit, or perhaps the lack of sleep had either created or revealed these new emotions, but John was angry. He was furious in fact, at Sherlock for being dead and suddenly not-dead, and at himself for ever believing Sherlock was dead and ever wishing he was not-dead. Mary brought him back with a gentle squeeze on good shoulder, her delicate fingers remaining in contact with his skin, trailing down the length of his arm as she returned the hand to her side.

“This is a good thing,” she said, then added after a pause. “Right?”

 _Of course_ , he wanted to say, but the words caught on his lips. It was the answer anyone would give if a beloved friend suddenly returned from the dead, wasn’t it? John could see Sherlock glance in his direction, expression disturbingly similar to the one of Mary’s face: concern without reprimand or question. A strange sort of understanding, despite the outlandish nature of their situation. For the slimmest moment, he felt like he could have hated them both equally, for their knowledge of John’s emotions when he couldn’t quite grasp them himself. But then Mary stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to John’s cheek, and John knew he’d have to settle for hating Sherlock twice as much.

Mary took John’s hand and led him back into the living room, seating him in an armchair. She gestured for Sherlock to sit on the loveseat opposite John, while she remained standing.

“Well, this was quite unexpected,” she said after a prolonged and tense silence. “Can I get you anything Mr. Holmes? Coffee, or Tea? Ah!” She smacked herself lightly on the forehead before extending a hand to Sherlock. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Holmes, I just realized I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Mary Morstan. It’s funny, we’ve never met but I feel like I know all about you.”

“I feel like I know everything about you as well,” Sherlock held her hand without shaking it and let his eyes pass over her, gaze sharp as a knife, peeling away layers. She snatched her hand away and stepped back. John cleared his throat loudly, and like flicking a switch Sherlock broke out into a warm smile. “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

“I’ll just be…”

Mary’s voice trailed off and she pointed over her shoulder before wandering back into the kitchen, still looking a bit dazed. It seemed that no amount of narration, no anecdotes laughed about over dinner or strained whispers in bed after a nightmare, could quite prepare one for an encounter with Sherlock Holmes. John wasn’t nearly skilled enough a wordsmith to express the frightening intellect that Sherlock could be convey without word or gesture, as though he were functioning on an entirely different plane than the rest of the human race. And maybe he was.

“What are you doing here,” John hissed under his breath.

“I was curious,” Sherlock said simply, crossing his legs and looking around the room. He picked up a wooden pear from the bowl of fake fruit on the coffee table and gave it a suspicious once-over.

John became acutely aware of just how different this place was from 221B Baker Street. It was a small two-story house, just outside of the city. Huge windows lined one wall, letting in the morning light. The walls were a clean shade of white, somewhere between “clinical” and “classic”, and scattered about the room were framed photos. Some hung on the wall and others sat in frames on just about every flat surface. There were pictures of he and Mary’s vacation to Disneyland Paris, pictures from Harry’s second marriage (to Clara, again), pictures at a fundraising gala for the hospital last spring. He was wearing a suit and gazing at Mary as she raised her glass to the photographer.

“Not good enough,” John said, snatching the pear from his hand and replacing it carefully. Sherlock uncrossed his legs and leaned in closer.

“I was bored.”

“That’s even worse,” John gritted his teeth to keep from raising his voice. “I’m serious Sherlock, what are you doing here? I told you last night that I needed some time to process all of this.” He gestured at the space between them, as though that short distance could somehow encompass the internal turmoil of the past three years. “I was planning on a little more than 6 hours. Has something happened? Something with Moran?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Sherlock said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I was up all night thinking.” He jumped to his feet and began pacing, fingers raised to his lips. He was so like the Sherlock Holmes of three years ago that John had to avert his gaze. It was easier last night, when the two of them were similarly emotional. Now here was Sherlock, back to normal, and it was John who was the stranger. “It’s a bad idea for you to take time. Rather, we should pursue something like immersion therapy until you can come to terms with my return. We need to work together on this one last case, at the very least. Then you can return to your…suburban life.” He sneered this last to a framed picture of John and Mary in Mickey Mouse ears.

“Is this part of your ‘immersion therapy’?” John jumped to his feet, taking a step toward him. Sherlock stood firm, straightening his back and raising himself to his full, intimidating stature. “Act like a total dick? Like the good ol’ days?”

“Hmm,” Sherlock turned his full attention to John, looking at him as though he’d presenting a particularly interesting problem. “You’ve become much more perceptive in my absence. I had considered that if you were to get angry and punch me, you may feel like the footing between us was not so…uneven.”

“I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t go for the nose this time,” John muttered, returning to his seat, anger draining from his body. Mary entered as he sat, carrying a two steaming mugs and setting them on the coffee table.

“It would only be for a few days,” Sherlock said suddenly, turning to John with a look of complete sincerity that gave him the willies. “While Mycroft kindly explains to the current residents of 221B that the government needs to confiscate the property for highly classified reasons. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” His voice dwindled away until it was barely audible, and Mary leaned closer to catch every word.

“Of course you can stay here,” she said immediately. “We have a spare bedroom. We need to unpack the sheets and everything, but John has the day off and can help you get settled in.”

“Is it really not a problem?” Sherlock gave her a smile, and John swore he could see a watery sheen over his eyes.

“No problem at all,” Mary said reassuringly, apparently already having forgotten their unsettling introduction. “Really, this is all still just unbelievable to me. You have to stay, and explain everything. My god, I have so many questions. Did you really go to Buckingham Palace in a _sheet_? I always though John made that up. And Moriarty! What happened to him?”

Sherlock turned his gaze sharply to John, who kept his eyes on the bowl of fruit. “Don’t you mean Richard Brook?” he asked sarcastically.

“John told me all about that, too,” Mary said. Suddenly she clapped her hands. “As a matter of fact…” She hurried to the roll-top desk in the corner of the room and began digging through the refuse littering its top.

“Mary,” John said sharply, but she was already returning with a thick binder which she placed on the table in front of Sherlock. He traced a long finger across its title.

“The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes?”

He flipped to the first page, then the next, remaining on each page for less than a second, which John supposed was long enough for him to get the gist.

“Lestrade helped,” John said, after Sherlock had reached the back cover but still hadn’t spoken. “So did Sally and Anderson, after they came around. We spent months researching, gathering all this evidence that Richard Brook was a fraud. But by then the news cycles had moved on. After all, who really cares about the boffin detective when Victoria Beckham is pregnant again?” Mary placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Can I keep this?” Sherlock asked suddenly, holding up the binder.

“Yeah,” John said, slightly taken aback. “Sure.”

Sherlock opened it again and began going through the pages, slower this time. “Moriarty is dead,” he spoke as she skimmed photocopies of archival documents and web searches. “He died on the rooftop. Shot himself, actually. Mycroft disposed of the body discretely to make it seem as though he disappeared of his own will after killing me so as to not alarm his network. Of course, they figured it out eventually.” Sherlock shot John a knowing look.

“You were right then,” Mary said to John, then directed her attention to Sherlock as he shot them a questioning look. “John said you never would have…you know, unless Moriarty was already dead. Why did you do it? Why did you jump?”

Sherlock glanced at John, who shook his head in a manner imperceptible to most. “That’s a longer story, and if I’m not mistaken you’re already late for work.”

Mary glanced at the clock and cursed. “You’re right. I’ll be back.”

She hurried out of the room and John heard their bedroom door close.

“Really slick, Sherlock,” John said, taking a swig of the now lukewarm tea. Sherlock hadn’t made a move to touch his.

“I do need a place to stay.”

“Why don’t you stay with Mycroft then? Or Molly?”

“Immersion therapy, remember?” Sherlock replied, and John had a feeling that the phrase would be thrown around a lot. _Why are you hovering in the kitchen, Sherlock? Why are you waiting outside the bathroom, Sherlock? Why are you watching me sleep, Sherlock?_ “Plus it’s more convenient for us to work on this case if we’re under the same roof.”

“I don’t want Mary to know about Moran,” John said immediately.

“Or why I jumped?”

John nodded his confirmation. “It just…it took me a long time to convince her that this was what I wanted.” He gestured to the house as a whole, but kept his eyes fixed on the wooden fruit. “I mean, I’ve never been dishonest about by past or our…adventures. It’s just…I think she was so willing to go along with all this…with me…because that was all in the past. Because I’m ordinary now. My best friend jumping of a roof to save my life and then suddenly reappearing because we’re being stalked by a dangerous criminal is not exactly a testament to that.”

“I see,” Sherlock said quietly. “Well obviously, the choice is yours.”

John finished his tea in silence, Sherlock fidgeting on the couch. He supposed Sherlock would have looked out of place anywhere, considering John had though him dead for the past three years, but he looked particularly out of place on their paisley couch, wedged between two piles of throw pillows, expression like he was seated in a waiting room about to undergo an unpleasant medical procedure. Not like Baker Street, where everything had screamed of his presence, where every object bore his mark. Scratches on the table, suspicious stains on the floor and walls, socks dug out from behind the radiator. Even the couch had seemed to perpetually sag in the middle, and though still occupied despite the passage of time. It was why John had moved out.

Mary flitted briefly through the living room on her way out, keys and bag in hand. She kissed John on his forehead, then his lips. “Put on some trousers before you catch a cold. I’ll see you both tonight.” She hurried out the door.

“I’ll just, ahh, do that then,” John said, rising to go to the bedroom. “Then we can discuss about Moran.”

Sherlock nodded and waved him off with a dismissive gesture. John suppressed a chuckle. Of course Sherlock would, despite his foreignness in these surroundings and despite being a guest (welcome or otherwise), taken command of this situation. John looked down at his steady hand and rubbed one on the upper thigh of his leg, which hadn’t really hurt since he’d awoken to the sound of glass breaking.

 _Careful, John_ , he told himself, making his way out of the room. _Old habits, and all that._

* * *

“What the…just when did you get here?”

John had returned to the living room to find that Sherlock moved on. The sounds of frenzied shuffling drew him to the guest room, where he found the man sitting cross-legged on the floor, pulling loose sheets of paper from a stack of folders, scanning them and throwing them aside with an aggravated noise. John took in the room. In one night, Sherlock had somehow become more settled in than John had gotten in the past 3 months. There were unfamiliar clothes piled like a nest on the daybed and a neat row of socks draped over each arm. His violin was already out of its case and seated on the computer chair. Nearly every square inch of the floor space was covered in papers and they’d begin to climb the wall.

“Oy!” John grabbed a pair of kitchen scissor from the wall, where they were pinning up a map of Brighton and a few ticket stubs.

“Watch it,” Sherlock hissed, dropping a folder and grabbing the map from where it had fallen. “Everything is in a very particular order.”

John fingered the gouge in the wall and groaned. “Mary’s going to kill me.”

“It’s drywall, John,” Sherlock said with finality.

“That doesn’t—” John stopped himself when he realized Sherlock wasn’t listening. He appeared to have found what he was searching for in the piles: a single sheet of paper which he held for a moment at the end of his nose, then slowly pulled it away, alternatingly squinting and opening his eyes wide. John couldn’t help but laugh, a soft chuckle that quickly gained momentum until John found himself doubled over and gulping in deep breaths.

“When you’re finished,” Sherlock said impatiently, shaking the paper at John.

He set it on the floor between them. John lowered himself gingerly to the floor, still breathing heavily. He set the cane down to his side and caught Sherlock glancing at it briefly, expression unreadable. On the paper was a blurry image of a man in a baseball cap, clearly enhanced (albeit poorly) from CCTV footage. A few wisps of sandy blond hair poked out from beneath the hat but the only portion of the face visible was one side of a strong jawline. He was bundled in a large winter jacket and carried a guitar case slung over one shoulder.

“Sebastian Moran,” Sherlock said. “This is the best photograph we have, taken moments after the assassination of D.I. John McMurdo. You’ll remember that case. It was all over the news. Shot down in a moving car. We’ve pictures of him, or at least of a similar looking man carrying this case, in the vicinity of a number of other targeted killings.” Sherlock paused, looking at John expectantly. John examined the picture but couldn’t imagine what he was missing. Blonde hair, over six feet tall, athletically built. Might as well arrest the whole England national football team. “Look closely, John. You’ve seen this man. Seen his face.”

“I give up, Sherlock,” John sighed, pushing the paper back across the floor. “What am I not getting?”

Sherlock smirked and pulled out the binder which John had given him. He removed a photograph from a plastic sleeve near the middle and placed it on the floor. “There,” he pointed.

John picked up the photograph, a sinking feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. The photograph was from a school trip Martha Peterson had taken in 1987 to the zoo. She’d had about 50 of them, of her and her friends gathered around the pens, climbing on the statues, and generally wreaking havoc in the way that a bunch of nine-year-olds with limited supervision tended to. She’d told John stories without prompt (or need, really), about little Billy Freeman, who was married twice last she heard, and Fred Porlock who dropped his camera in the lion enclosure. But John listened, because he knew that if he could just wade through the bullshit with a smile on his face, Martha Peterson would give up the gold. And sure enough, there was the very last picture she pulled out. It was meant to be a self-portrait, but only the top of her head and a bit of forearm were visible. Instead, it was a remarkably clear shot of two boys standing by the reptile tank.

John had continually returned to this photo after Martha had given it to him. He would stare at the child, taking in the round cheeks, the bowl cut, the tiny hands. It was hard to imagine, even faced with this proof, that Moriarty was ever a child. That he hadn’t simply sprung full-formed and impeccably dressed from the bowels of Hell.

“He was always a bit of an oddball,” Martha had said. “Very quiet, except you know, when he wasn’t. He’d have these outbursts sometimes.” She laughed nervously. “We were all a bit scared of him to be honest. Carl was the only person who ever stood up to him, and well…Anyway he wasn’t Moriarty when I knew him. Jimmy Doran was his name. I would have gotten in touch with you sooner. I mean, I’ve been staring at your advertisements in the paper for ages. I just didn’t make the connection until I was going through these pictures.”

“Who’s that?” John had asked, pointing to the other boy. A tall boy, with sandy blonde hair, mouth frozen open in laughter.

He knew who it was now, but he turned over the photo anyway, to where Martha had written their names in broad, neat letters: Jimmy Doran and Seb Moulton.

“He was only here for two years before his family moved to America,” John said, remembering what Martha had told him. “But they were inseparable. She thought it was strange, because he was so charming and friendly with everyone, but when it came down to it he still chose to be with Moriarty. Always.”

Sherlock had pulled his knees to his chest at this point and was leaning with his back against the daybed, head tilted back onto the mattress. His mouth was moving slightly, as though he might be talking silently to himself.

“What does it mean, Sherlock?”

“It means we’re playing a drastically different game than I’d first anticipated. Than I’d hoped,” he added the last under his breath. “Obviously Moran is driven by revenge: revenge against me for tricking him, which he may have found insulting on an intellectual level, and for the death of Moriarty, which would have crippled the organization that is his bread and butter. These have quite simple motivations: pride, anger, and greed. I hadn’t imagined the possibility of genuine affection, mostly because I hadn’t thought Moriarty capable of reciprocating those feelings in a convincing manner. But as child…children are capable of many sentiments that become stripped away by age and experience. Moran wants revenge for the nine-year-old boy to whom he was an only friend, a sole protector from the world that couldn’t comprehend his genius.”

“I still don’t understand. I mean, if he wants revenge so bad why doesn’t he just shoot us all and be done with it.”

“That _is_ the question. That is the _question_. Moran is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous even than Moriarty, simply for not being quite so…insane. However, this also makes him more predictable. He is not playing this for enjoyment; He is playing to win. He means to kill me, but first he means to destroy me. And he must do all this without dying and without revealing himself.” Sherlock jumped up and began to pace the room, paper crunching underfoot. “Moran was in Special Ops in America. His very existence is a highly guarded secret. Not even Mycroft could ruffle enough feathers to get us a decent picture, although I must admit my brother’s name has had considerably less sway since my little fall. Moran has a reputation to consider, and I’m certain that without Moriarty’s protection it is becoming more difficult to play both sides of the fence.”

 He stopped in front of John, face suddenly serious. “I made a mistake last time, which has caused you a considerable amount of suffering. I lost to Moriarty. Not to the man himself, but to the idea of him that I had created in my head. I feared him, and that prevented me from thinking rationally. I will not make that mistake again.”

John held his steady gaze for what felt like an eternity, their mutual attentiveness turning very nearly competitive before a bell chimed from somewhere beneath the pile of clothes, startling both men into action. Sherlock dug for his mobile while John shuffled through the papers within arm’s reach, corralling them into messy piles.

Sherlock glanced at the message and pocketed the phone, his expression vacillating between relief and excitement, though both were overcast by an unsettling shadow that left his eyes without a trace of either emotion.

“So it begins,” he said, before circling the room at a bullet’s pace, grabbing items from the clutter with precision: a parka that was crumbled half under the desk, a pair of sunglasses on top of the dresser, a hat that was full of wadded up paper and some coins, which he dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. Lastly, he opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a Sig Sauer, tucking it into the back of his pants and letting the parka fall into place, concealing it from view. John was gaping at him.

“What?” Sherlock asked, examining the get-up in a full length mirror hanging on the door. He twisted around, possibly checking to see if the parka had caught on the gun.

“You honestly couldn’t look more conspicuous if you were walking around with a big target painted on your back. In fact, at least if you were wearing a target you could be inferred as the victim. Go out looking like that, and I swear you’re going to be arrested for truancy.”

Ten minutes later, they were heading out. Sherlock still looked alarmingly unlike himself in a brown corduroy jacket Mary’s brother had left and John’s reading glasses, but at least he looked more like a doddery professor than a teenaged hooligan. He tugged at the sleeves of the coat, complaining about the tight fit and the fact that John had confiscated his weapon (“It’s licensed to me and everything!” Sherlock had protested, but John countered that it would be impossible to hide under the snug jacket). The gun now rested in the small of John’s back, shrouded by his usual baggy jumper. Though he didn’t care to admit it, the feel of that cold metal against his bare skin did more to support each step than the cane clutched in his right hand.

John hadn’t even thought to ask where they were going. 


	3. The Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John let himself collapse into the seat, staring at the window. He hardly saw London nowadays, other than the familiar route between home and work. Not the way he used to. He felt like an explorer back then, somehow discovering new lands in places where millions of people tread every day. That was London with Sherlock, equal parts exotic and dangerous, and when Sherlock left he took that London with him. But it was back now, flashing outside the window of the cab, all shiny and slick with rainfall and Ronald Adair’s blood and Moran’s threat weighing on him like a blanket, heavy and warm and comfortable.

* * *

The body was lying face-up in the middle of the floor, feet pointing towards the door. He’d been there for a while, probably overnight. Long enough for the blood pooling around him to soak into the carpet and dry to a deep copper. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling, but John was more interested in the wall.

On the far wall, between two windows, was a smiley face painted in yellow, a single bullet hole between its eyes.

Lestrade glanced up from the corner where he was conferring with an unfamiliar officer. His eyes met John’s and he blanched, as though John were the one who had mysteriously returned from the dead. He put on a grim smile and approached. Sherlock brushed past him with a nod and began circling the room, first flipping through a neat stack of papers on the desk, then getting on his knees and sniffing the carpet.

“Can’t say I was expecting to see you here, John,” Lestrade said guiltily. “But I’m glad. I wanted to tell you myself. I mean, I only found out a few weeks ago, but he insisted that I not tell you. Said that it would be safer to keep you in the dark until this whole threat thing was sorted out, that he could protect you and Mary from a distance. I think he fancied himself a bit of a Batman.”

John grunted noncommittally and watched Sherlock shuffle around the perimeter on his hands and knees, nose close to the floor and snuffling like a bloodhound.

“How are you…uhhh…holding up?” Lestrade asked, once the silence made it sufficiently clear that John wouldn’t be opening up spontaneously.

“Fine. I’m fine. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said with a grin, either incapable of noting or willingly overlooking the way his hand clenched on the cane or his back molars ground together. Things that Sherlock would never overlook, that he’d probably even noticed from his new position, torso and arms dangling out the open window. “Look at us, back together again. I never would have…You know, for days he had Anderson convinced that he was actually Sherlock’s non-existent younger brother, Sherrinford?” Lestrade chuckled at this, and John couldn’t suppress a smile.

“Lestrade,” Sally called as she entered from the hallway. She did a double-take when she noticed who he was talking to. “John! I knew Sherlock would break eventually. Should have started a pool.”

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“Housekeeper is finally coherent. Did you want to hear her statement?”

Lestrade nodded his assent and clamped one heavy hand on John’s shoulder. “Welcome back.”

Sally waved goodbye and gave him a little smile. John remembered that he hadn’t spoken to her since that day in 221B when she’d gotten Sherlock arrested, turned them into fugitives, set them along that inevitable path. But he supposed that he had forgiven her. She was just another part of the game, and less a pawn than a victim of Moriarty’s painstakingly-crafted manipulation.

Sherlock cleared his throat, and John noticed that he’d finally stopped his ministrations, settling himself into a chair behind the desk and steepling his hands beneath his chin. His attention was not on John, but rather on a group of officers still mulling around the room and very obviously avoiding Sherlock’s gaze. “Trumwell,” Sherlock said sharply. A young-looking officer with curly-red hair and a mass of freckles jumped and turned to face him reluctantly, shooting his companions a desperate look. They busied themselves with dusting the windowsill for fingerprints.

“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” the young man said resignedly.

“What happened here, Officer?”

“Ronald Adair, a businessman, killed sometime last night by a single gunshot wound to the chest. Housekeeper found him this morning.”

“Point of ingress?”

“The window was open.”

“And the bullet?”

Officer Trumwell gestured to the bullet hole in the wall. “Went clear through him and into the wall. Ballistics already took it for testing.”

Sherlock leapt to his feet, look of annoyance unable to entirely mask the glee on his face. “Wrong and wrong.” He turned to address John. “My god, where do they find these people? Why don’t you take them through it, John.”

“Caliber’s wrong,” John said, going for the obvious first as he wracked his mind to try to see deeper, to see what Sherlock saw. “The bullet hole on the wall is from a small caliber pistol, but the shape of that wound, the fact that it was a through-and-through…Adair was killed by something much larger. A big game rifle maybe?”

“Precisely,” Sherlock said, presenting him with a genuine smile. John straightened his back, chest filling with pride. _Deeper_ , he told himself. _Sherlock wouldn’t look so eager if the solution were something simple_.

“His chest is level with the window, so the shot which killed him must have come from outside. Then the killer could have come in through the window and left his message undisturbed. But…”

“Yes?”

“But the body hasn’t been moved at all, or a blood trail would have been obvious. He was killed just there, on his feet facing the door, and fell backwards. That wouldn’t have happened if he’d been shot from the window.”

Sherlock took a few long steps out to the hallway and opened the opposite door with the flourish of a magician. It was Adair’s bedroom, and on the far wall, directly across from the open window in the office, was a second open window.

“One bullet,” Sherlock said. “In one window, out of the other, and incidentally through Mr. Adair along the way.”

“A crack shot,” John muttered.

“Indeed. Congratulations, John!” He said with a jovial pat on the back. “You have observed exactly what Sebastian Moran wanted you too.”

“What do you mean?”

“All these clever little anomalies are really obvious to anyone with half a brain,” He gave a pointed look to Officer Trumwell. “But what do they tell us? Nothing we didn’t already know: that this crime was committed by Sebastian Moran. Then there’s a message of threat, clearly directed towards us. But we knew that already as well. All purposefully placed, meant to mislead, meant to distract us from the bigger question.”

“Which is?”

“Why Ronald Adair?” Sherlock moved to stand near the body, looking down at his lifeless face. John joined him, but found himself feeling unexpectedly queasy. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies, even without frequenting crime scenes, in the past three years, but they weren’t usually so bloody, and John wished someone had had the decency to close his eyes. “I certainly wasn’t friends with him, were you? His death means nothing to me, but it meant something to Sebastian Moran, or at least whomever he’s working for. A targeted killing, disguised as a message. Neat.”

“What happened then?” The question came from the doorway, where Lestrade stood, hands tucked in his pockets, Sally hovering over his shoulder.

“Really, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, stepping over the body and approaching Lestrade at the entrance. “You need to train you’re men better. I’m not sure how three officers managed to all miss the clear signs of a struggle.”

“I don’t see any signs of a struggle, either,” Lestrade admitted. John looked around the room and similarly found everything to be in place. He shrugged his comradery.

Sherlock sighed, pointing to the desk. “Two stacks of paper on either side of the desk. The one on the right is in chronological order, but the one on the left isn’t. Clearly it was knocked off the desk during the struggle and replaced, neatly but not correctly.”

Sherlock crossed the hall to the bedroom and inspected the window. “Adair was in here when his visitor arrived. He opened this window, perhaps to let in some fresh air. More likely it was a message, that the visitor was free to enter. Yes, they knew each other.” He answered the question just as Lestrade opened his mouth. “He greeted the visitor in the hallway and moved to the office. The visitor would have made sure the bedroom door was left open, but closed the office door. And the visitor would have opened this window.” Sherlock crossed the room and knelt down close to the sill. “You’ll notice that the wood has recently been wiped clean, unlike the window in the bedroom which has a few days build-up of dirt and oil. They sat at the desk, Adair dragging over this chair for his guest.” He pointed out shallow impressions in the carpet at the feet of an antique wingback chair in the corner. “They sat, discussing business for a while, until finally Adair realized that something was wrong. He stood, knocking into the desk and scattering the papers. Or perhaps they fell when the visitor reached for him across the desk. Finally, though, the visitor drew his gun. Surely you noticed the unmistakable smell of urine in that corner, where Mr. Adair finally realized that the end was nigh? Still, he made a run for it, just as the visitor had expected, and when he opened the door.” Sherlock gestured to the body. “The visitor left his message, and closed both doors but neither window, and went on his merry way.”

He looked at John expectantly, and at first he thought Sherlock was looking for further input―some small detail that he though John, even with his ordinary brain, should be able to notice. Quickly though he perceived the wideness of his eyes, the expectant poise of his shoulders.

“Brilliant,” John said at last, hardly able to keep the note of question from his voice.

“Yes, I like to think so,” Sherlock said. He kept his mouth in a tight line and looked wholly unsatisfied.  

“So that’s the how, then,” Lestrade said. “Any guesses as to why?”

“Four, at the moment,” Sherlock replied. “I can say with confidence that Adair was involved in the same organization Moran is affiliated with. It is also abundantly clear that Adair had a serious gambling problem, which generally goes along with poor finances. The most apparent explanation of all the facts would be that Adair was planning on betraying the organization in a way which would benefit him financially. He though that the visitor was a coconspirator, but rather found himself turned upon. The only mystery remaining now is what exactly this organization is up to.”

Sherlock knelt by the body, pulling specimen bags from the folds of his coat. He plucked a few hairs from the head and placed them in the bag. Then, without asking permission, he cut a piece of fabric from Adair’s sleeve with scissors that appeared from nowhere and vanished just as quickly, along with the fabric in a separate bag. Sally made a noise of protest, but Lestrade silenced her with a look. Sherlock gave both hands a thorough inspection with his magnifier, prodding the cold flesh with one long finger. Finally, he rose, pocketing the magnifier.

“That’s all we’ll be getting from this crime scene, but I don’t believe we’ll have to wait long for another.”

“Why’s that?” Sally asked.

“Adair was hardly a mastermind; rather he was an opportunist, as most petty criminals tend to be. That’s why empires such as theirs tend to fail, particularly after losing a figurehead such as Moriarty. Without being held at bay by their mutual terror, everyone is all too ready to stab one another in the back. The organization is cleaning house, which means their getting ready to make a big move. Ronald Adair won’t be the only casualty. Let me know when the next one shows up. It’ll be fairly obvious.” He inclined his head toward the smiley face on the wall. “Come along, John.”

They bundled into the cab just as the overcast sky erupted into a heavy rain.

Sherlock sat with his back straight and fingers tapping erratically on his knees, his mind obviously elsewhere. John let himself collapse into the seat, staring at the window. He hardly saw London nowadays, other than the familiar route between home and work. Not the way he used to. He felt like an explorer back then, somehow discovering new lands in places where millions of people tread every day. That was London with Sherlock, equal parts exotic and dangerous, and when Sherlock left he took that London with him. But it was back now, flashing outside the window of the cab, all shiny and slick with rainfall and Ronald Adair’s blood and Moran’s threat weighing on him like a blanket, heavy and warm and comfortable.

John stood with a foot in either London. He belonged to both of them and neither of them all at once.

* * *

John woke the next morning to the sounds of voices, punctuated frequently by bouts of laughter. He laid in bed for a minute, savoring the bizarre harmony, Sherlock’s throaty chuckle mingling with Mary’s unrefined giggling. The past few days had been equal parts dream and nightmare, but with his guard quelled by lingering sleepiness, John allowed himself a moment to relish in the voices of the two people most important to him.

Then, of course, he remembered what it was they had in common, and what was therefore the most likely source of their shared mirth. John hurried out of bed, pausing to put on a dressing gown and slippers.

“He didn’t,” said Mary, aghast. She was sitting on the edge of the couch cushion, empty mug clutched forgotten in her hands. Her were trained on Sherlock, who stood in the center of the room looking ruffled and out of breath, as though he had just finished a very involved pantomime.

“Oh I assure you, he did,” Sherlock said with a smile and suggestive quirk of his eyebrow.

“Did what, exactly?” John asked, entering the room. Mary smiled at him and shifted to the side, making room on the couch.

“Good morning, love,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Sherlock was just telling me about your adventures. Did you really get chased around the British Museum wearing nothing but pants?”

“I was meant to be a diversion, or so I was informed after Sherlock bailed me out of jail.”

Mary burst into a fit of giggles and Sherlock presented her with a conspiratorial wink.

John sighed. “You know, between your stories and Harry’s recounting of my childhood traumas, how is a bloke supposed to impress a girl?”

“Oh, I’m _very_ impressed,” Mary murmured, squeezing his upper thigh and smiling against his ear. John glanced to Sherlock, but he seemed oblivious to the intimate moment. Rather, he turned to address Mary, head cocked to the side and expression deceptively naïve.

“Childhood traumas?”

“No way,” John said immediately, looking between Mary and Sherlock. “Not one word, Mary. Not a single word. In fact, don’t even think about it. I’m still not entirely certain he can’t read minds.”

As if in response, Sherlock caught Mary’s attention from across the room, pale eyes narrowing. He held two fingers up to his temple, rubbing them in slow circles. “I’m getting something. Yes, I can see it clearly now…Clowns.” He looked to John for confirmation, and was given such as his mouth involuntarily opened in surprise. After a moment he turned to Mary.

“You _told_ him?”

“Sorry, love,” she answered guiltily.

John just smiled and shook his head, not really able to maintain his indignity when faced with the impossibility of Sherlock maintaining, and apparently enjoying, a conversation with a women with whom John was romantically involved. The two had always seemed to be mutually exclusive, and John couldn’t help wondering if Sherlock was just having a go at him, trying to weasel his way into every aspect of John’s life. But he didn’t think Sherlock could conjure up or maintain such authentic joviality. Anyway, John had become a fairly competent reader of the enigma that was Sherlock, and right now he looked happy.

When John rose to enter the kitchen, Sherlock followed. He watched in silence as John filled the kettle and switched it on.

“Mary said I could set up my laboratory in the sunroom,” he remarked at last.

“Did she?” John shot a look at Mary through the open door and she shrugged. “I never said we could keep him.”

“You wouldn’t let me get a dog,” Mary replied.

“You neither?” Sherlock asked. “I wonder if that’s another one of those childhood trauma thingies.”

“You wanted to run experiments on it, Sherlock!” John interjected, throwing his hands in the air.

“Are you angry?”

Mary suddenly looked concerned, rising from her seat on the couch and crossing the room to stand in the doorway. Sherlock gave him a cursory glance over.

“No,” Sherlock said deliberately. “He’s quite happy, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s a relief,” Mary smiled. “I hate it when he gets all grumpy. He does this frowny thing.”

“Ah yes, the frowny thing. I hated that. And the tongue clicking.”

Mary rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated groan. John felt his skin crawl as he watched the two engage in the strangely familial banter, wondering how he’d ever found it heartening. Mary deposited her empty cup in the mug and gave John a chaste kiss on the lips and a less chaste squeeze of his behind.

“You should get dressed, love,” she said. “Or else I might be late as well.”

John glanced at the clock and found that it was already quarter to seven.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he repeated to himself like a mantra, throwing some bread in the toaster and pouring the water, only lukewarm, into his awaiting mug. Mary gave Sherlock a kiss on his cheek on her way out. As she disappeared down the hall, Sherlock raised two fingers to the point of impact briefly and then examined them.

“Don’t mind her,” John said, chuckling at his shell-shocked expression. “She’s always been a bit…overly friendly.” He stopped himself from saying ‘physical’ before he remembered that Sherlock wasn’t really the type to indulge in innuendo.

“Not your usual type, is she?” Sherlock asked, following John as he made his way from the kitchen to the bedroom. He very nearly slipped through the doorway but John managed to close the door in his face. He knew that Sherlock would remain just outside though, awaiting his response. When Sherlock asked a question, he expected an answer.

“I don’t have a type,” John said, buttoning up his checked shirt. He grabbed a cardigan off the floor (gray with a pair of white elephants flanking the collar) and sniffed it. It smelled like the hospital, like every piece of clothing he owned. _Clean enough_.

“Of course you do, well in a sense. Your type is anyone who shows you the least bit of interest. Not very particular. In fact, I’d even say not nearly particular enough. Remember that 23-year-old with daddy issues? And the soldier fetishist?”

John pulled up his trousers and grabbed his cane from the corner. Sherlock was waiting slouched in the opposite doorway. He gave the jumper and cane equally scathing looks.

“Oh, I remember,” John said, making his way back to the kitchen. Sherlock followed, reminding John of the medical students at the hospital, constantly trailing after him, scrounging for bits of information or praise. “Although I’d prefer not to.”

“However, it’s obvious from the way Mary looks at you that you pursued her. And that she wasn’t always so…receptive.”

John sighed, retrieving the jam from the fridge. He busied himself with preparing his toast as Sherlock watched expectantly. “You’re right, of course,” he said at last. “Mary was not exactly keen on me when we first met. Mostly because, at the time, she was engaged to someone else.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but looked otherwise unsurprised.

“How does she look at me?” John asked, pausing in his ministrations.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Sherlock replied.

It wasn’t really an answer, but somehow it made John feel infinitely better, like those few simple words had smoothed away the years of wrinkles caused by wrenching self-doubt and those sparse questioning moments, when Mary looked at him with her expression unusually shuttered, and John swore she was regretting the decision to leave her football-playing city boy for a broken army doctor with enough emotional baggage to sink an ocean liner.

Particularly now that that emotional baggage had moved in and was setting up shop in their sunroom.

“Bedroom’s off limits. So’s my study. Keep all experiments confined to the sunroom. That means nothing in the refrigerator or the bathtub or any of the sinks. There’s some leftover lasagna in the freezer and take out menus in that drawer there. For the love of god, eat something. You’re nearly invisible when you turn sideways.”

“Is that your medical opin―”

The obnoxious reply was cut off as John shoved his second piece of toast into Sherlock’s open mouth. He sputtered and the toast fell, landing jam-side-down (of course) on Sherlock’s palm. They both stared at the fallen toast for a moment, neither moving.

“Well,” John said, given the frozen Sherlock a wide berth as he skirted around him towards the door. “I’ll be back around six, then.”

He made a break for it, nearly expecting the toast to be returned somewhere in the vicinity of his head, but there was nothing. When he looked back from the threshold, he saw Sherlock place the toast back into his mouth and hold his hand up to the light, looking thoughtfully at the gobs of jam clinging to his skin, reminiscent of congealed blood.


	4. The Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The voice was familiar. So very, very familiar. And his name, spoken by that same voice innumerable times, shouted and whispered in anger or passion. But it had never been spoken quite like this before, all choked up with fear. Never had the syllable been uttered so unwillingly, and never had John been so unwilling to hear it.

* * *

It was a tough morning; the toughest John had had in a long time. He’d spent the first hour after his arrival battling with a father who considered himself a diagnostician, based solely on access to WebMD and his own convictions. He was absolutely convinced that his son’s sinus infection was a Bolivian parasite. ( _And when was the last time your son went to Bolivia?_ John asked. _Well, never,_ the man had replied, expression souring at John’s obvious skepticism. _But our housekeeper is Bolivian_.) Finally he’d agreed to run a blood test and fecal swab, simply to appease the large man, who’d begun to clench his fists menacingly.

Situations like this were unpleasant, but not uncommon. John’s predecessor had told him that it was something he might have trouble understanding until he had children of his own. It seemed a bit unfair, that having children can make someone so stupid and stubborn, particularly when the children themselves were generally stupid and stubborn, with very occasional exception.

Tommy Harris was an exception; a seven year old who’d been sick for longer than he’d been healthy. Tommy had been at the hospital long before John, seeming strangely constant, like the ancient vending machine or the faded and torn pain-scale posters. He had one of those rare congenital diseases, the kind that provide a long, painful, graceless death, but it never seemed that way with Tommy. Maybe because he was always smiling and laughing, always surrounded by visitors and nurses and _life_ , enough to give his pallor the illusion of liveliness by simple proximity. He supposed that’s why it had come as a surprise last week, when he took a turn for the worst. Logically, there was no reason why it should have been a surprise. In fact, he probably should have died years ago. It was just damn unfair.

As of 10:47 that morning, Tommy Harris was no longer dying, and John supposed that should have been a comfort. It certainly seemed that way to his willowy mother, who urged him forward, one hand clenched around his thin wrist and the other pressed to the cross around her neck.

 _Go to heaven_ , she said. _Go to heaven_.

Now, John sat in his office after giving his secretary word that he was not to be disturbed. He just needed a moment, and she seemed to understand. To not pass judgment. But John couldn’t seem to do the same for himself. He felt out of his depth. Everything was different when children were involved: less logical, messier. He wondered whether he could still do this job once he had children of his own, or whether suddenly every little girl would have Mary’s eyes, and the boys would have his ears, and he’d be taking his child to work every day, convinced that their runny nose was the bird flu.

The text message alert was a welcome distraction, made only slightly less welcome by its content.

Assistance requested. 421 Foster Lane. SH

CAN’T. I HAVE WORK.

Shame. Could use your eyes. SH

John sighed. He wanted to reply with something like “could use the distraction.” In fact, he wanted to skive off and catch a cab to the unfamiliar address, to what he could only presume was another gory crime scene, where he could chat with Lestrade about last night’s football match while Sherlock bounced around the room like a child in a sweet shop. Like the old days. He felt a pang that might have been regret in his stomach (echoed by one in his knee, an unwelcome and frankly unnecessary reminder of his damaged psyche). This position, this office, his home, his relationship with Mary. These were all things he’d wanted before he met Sherlock, and they were the things he wanted after Sherlock left. After he _died_. Yet somehow, when Sherlock was around, all he wanted was to stand next to him, over whatever corpse-du-jour has sparked his interest, to chase danger through the streets of London, cold pistol gripped in his hand. To end each night in Baker Street, every muscle aching from exertion, unable even to keep his eyes open. Drifting off in his armchair to the sound of Sherlock plucking absent-mindedly at his violin and waking up the next morning on the couch under a blanket.

There was another buzz from his cellphone: One of ours, yes? SH

It was an image of a man laying spread eagle in what looked like an empty warehouse. Pools of blood gathered around each arm. It took a moment for John to realize what he recognized was awkward about the anatomy: each hand had been removed and was replaced with a small gap left between the stump and wrist. The cause of death was most likely a single gunshot wound to the chest, close range this time so really it could have been anyone. But the message left, three letters that send a chill down John’s spine, greatly narrowed the field:

IOU

They were written thickly in blood on the wall, gravity giving the illusion of flow, as though the letters were wounds to something living. It was straight out of a horror movie, and John supposed that was the point of everything so far: the threats, the bodies, the messages. It was all a big show. Not for the first time, John got the feeling that they were missing something. Something important.

Sherlock seemed to think they were a step ahead of Moran, simply for figuring out that the last victim was involved in the organization, but John wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t elegant enough, for a man so intimately involved in Moriarty’s schemes. Moriarty succeeded because he knew his audience, because he knew Sherlock enough to play him, his weaknesses and strengths reduced to buttons and levers. Either Moran didn’t know his audience in the least, or he and Sherlock were watching the wrong show.

HANDS. NO REASON TO CHOP THEM OFF. NO SIGNIFICANCE, NO SIGNATURE.

Precisely. Light indentations + chaff marks, clearly resulting from Schrade handcuffs attached to a briefcase weighing not more than 10 kg. Chaff marks indicate a struggle. SH

WHAT’D YOU NEED MY EYES FOR THEN.

Anderson growing a mustache. Picture is no substitute; must see to believe. SH

John laughed, the kind of too big laughter that hurt on its way out; A laughter seemingly made bigger by all the other thoughts which were expelled simultaneously: his worries about Moran, even the stress of that morning. By the time his body stopped its quaking, he’d received another text.

Anticipate case will be solved by evening. Bring home Indian please. SH

John tucked the phone into his pocket. No need to reply, as he was sure that Sherlock knew John would never pass up an opportunity to make him eat something (or anything, for the love of God). At the thought of food, his stomach rumbled unpleasantly. He made his way out of the office, nodding to his secretary, who’d tried to look busy shuffling papers as soon as she heard the handle turn. He headed to the vending machine on the first floor. Crisps and candy bars had become a lunch staple, or more accurately just lunch, since he started working here, his only other option being a cafeteria that looked to serve whatever bits of food the patients had left over. Once he swore he got a slice of meatloaf that had a bite taken out of it, teeth marks and all.

There was a man loitering around the machine, looking around awkwardly, hands moving in his pockets. Wisps of dark brown hair stuck out from under a newsboy cap and under his heavy jacket John caught a glimpse of a hideously patterned jumper. John had seen him around the hospital for a few weeks now, only during visiting hours so most likely family or a family friend. He’s never seen him with a patient though, or seen him looking particularly distressed. Not the immediate family then. Perhaps a mother’s new boyfriend.

Their eyes mat by accident and John nodded, his doctor-smile in place.

“Afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” the man said, returning the smile briefly. “I don’t suppose you have change for a five. The machine won’t take this one.”

He held it up guiltily; It was pretty clear why the machine wouldn’t take it. The bill bore all telltale signs of being crumpled into a wad, possibly having gone through the wash, and one corner was missing. John dug around in his pockets, grimacing.

“Sorry, mate,” he said, holding out a handful of coins. “I only have three pounds.”

“That’s fine, fine,” he grabbed the change and placed the bill in John’s empty palm. He met John’s gaze and held it for the first time. His eyes were oddly blank, completely devoid of the nervous energy that seemed to radiate from his every word and action. “You’ll owe me, yeah?”

“Yeah,” John agreed without thinking.

The man used a few coins to purchase a dairy milk bar and slipped it into his pocket. He gave John a wave before he disappeared down the hall. John tried to remember where he’d seen the man before. Was it oncology? Maybe. It seemed natural to picture the man leaning against the safari mural in that wing. Then again, John could have sworn he’d seen him in cardiology, reading a book in the lounge. And once also outside ICU, putting on a brave face although the woman with him was crying openly.

His phone buzzed again. It was Mary this time.

Don’t eat chips for lunch. I love you.

He looked around hopefully, but she was nowhere to be seen. Somehow Sherlock’s uncanny intuitive abilities had managed to rub off on her, which didn’t seem fair really since they’d known each other for two days. John had lived with the man for years and still couldn’t figure what Mary was thinking half the time. He’d asked her once, and she told him that she says what she thinks, exactly what she thinks. Her greatest flaw, she called it. And John believed her, or at least he trusted her and that has been more than enough.

LOVE YOU 2.

* * *

The house was quiet and dark when John returned from work fumbling for his keys and a hold on the briefcase and bag of take out. He may have suspected that the house was empty, that the past two days had been some strange delusion, if not for the somber notes of a violin, along with a slightly noxious smell, drifting from an open window.

John dropped his case by the door, making his way down the darkened hall. The melody was not familiar to him: long quivering notes broken by occasional bursts of arpeggio, in some minor key, of course. Sherlock hated the major keys. They were too predictable. He much preferred the unexpected sharps and flats that kept his busy mind engaged, and John suspected that the dolorous output appealed to his sense of mystery. A bit like popping his collar.

Sherlock was sprawled lengthwise across the loveseat, leaning far over the arm to keep his elbow free for the longer notes. It would have been an awkward position even without the added spectacle of the violin. John wondered if it would be worth it to invest in a full length couch rather than the loveseat, but he supposed Sherlock would be long gone before any such purchase could be finalized. Back to the well-worn confines of Baker Street.

The music died away with a final flourish and Sherlock let his arm fall to the ground, violin hitting the flood with a soft clunk that made John flinch. He could see the edge of a nicotine patch peeking out from under his sleeve.

“I hope you solved the case,” John said, shaking the bags. “Because I got two servings of butter chicken and Mary won’t eat it.”

“The case? Solved that hours ago. Lestrade is just tying up a few loose ends before we can make our move.” Sherlock got to his feet, depositing the violin half-hazardly on the couch. John followed him into the kitchen, where an assortment of lab equipment covered the table, along with some of their better dinnerware holding substances which did not look remotely edible.

“The hell, Sherlock?” John exclaimed. He deposited the bags on the floor and began gather up the plates and bowls. He made the mistake of examining one of the substances more closely, and could make out a charred fingernail. His stomach flipped. “I thought we agreed that you could use the sunroom.”

“The table wasn’t big enough. I was planning on cleaning everything up before you got home,” he shot the dishes a suspicious look, as if his intention alone should have been strong enough to clean up the mess and the dirty dishes had betrayed him with their persistence. He plucked the china from John’s hand and dropped them in the sink, filling it with scalding water and far too much dish soap. “You’ll uhh, want to let those soak for a bit.”

“You can’t take over like this, Sherlock” John said seriously. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend, though he could feel the heat of Sherlock’s gaze on his profile. “This isn’t just my house, you know.”

“The implication being that if it were just your house, my behavior would be perfectly acceptable.”

John sighed. “You’re behavior is never acceptable. It’s just that I don’t care about…” He gestured around the room in general, but Sherlock seemed to know where to look, his eyes darting to the rooster shaped clock, the porcelain cow creamer, the matching dish towels placed deliberately around the room.  “Things. But Mary does, and I care about Mary.”

Sherlock nodded slowly in understanding, whether genuine or not, John couldn’t guess. But he accepted it for what it was: an exit from this conversation. Since Sherlock’s unexpected return, John had been avoiding self-reflection with the kind of stalwart determination he hadn’t drawn upon in years. But with the accumulation of all these tiny moments, of doubt, of regret, he knew it was inevitable. Soon, he would have to decide precisely where he sat on the spectrum, between the loving boyfriend/caring pediatrician and the ex-soldier/assistant crime fighter. The bachelor to Sherlock’s boffin.

“Eat off trays?”

* * *

 “Would you please slow down? It’s no good eating all this if you make yourself sick. You’ll just throw it all back up.”

Sherlock paused with the fork halfway to his open mouth. He held it in a closed fist, all the better for shoveling food into his mouth with a voracity that could only stem from days of fasting. “I know how to eat, John.”

John just gave him a skeptical look and popped another samosa into his mouth. Sherlock continued at a slightly more reasonable pace, but it wasn’t long until his tray was empty. He leaned back into the plush armchair with a groan, propping his feet up on the coffee table, buttons seeming to strain more (if that were possible) around his recently consumed dinner, like some contented snake. Finally, he began to speak.

“It’s all about the connection, John. Once you have that, it is simply a matter of following the threads. When Moriarty was alive, the threads were all collected, every criminal cell carefully managed and perfectly in sync, despite being unaware of each other’s existence. However, cut off from their puppet master, the threads become tangled. It some ways, they become harder to follow. Certainly, a number of culpable individuals have walked free from the cells that disbanded immediately after Moriarty’s death. Others went rampant, engaging on crime sprees so obvious, Anderson could have followed them home. Others still remained in furtive contact, biding their time, waiting for the return of Moriarty, or at least someone similar. These were the hardest to find. The cells I’ve spent the past three years flushing out. John, I…” he cast his eyes downward. “I have done things that I would not have done otherwise to achieve these goals. I…I stepped into his shoes, became that someone similar.”

“You’re not like him,” John said firmly, but Sherlock didn’t acknowledge him. Just kept his eyes down as his head lolled to the side, as though hearing the whispers of someone not there.

“Connections, yes. When Moran was inactive, it was nearly impossible to make them, despite his being the largest cell and the one most frequently in contact with Moriarty. From what I gathered, they were the brawn to his brain. Carried out whatever crime du jour required the most muscle: bombings, assassinations, kidnapping, etc. However, all their funds came from the other cells, from the thieves and the blackmailers and the money launderers. Do you see now?”

“Not really, no.”

“Money, John! They had no money. They had the power, even a shaky insight into Moriarty’s grander schemes, but no money without contacting the other cells. I couldn’t make the connection on the first murder alone, although I had my suspicions. The man had been a compulsive gambler, and very deeply in debt at that. It was immediately obvious that he was planning to steal something of value from the organization, but I had no way of knowing precisely what. Until Moran so graciously presented us with a second body: Patrick Weller, a banker. Now what could a banker possibly be transporting handcuffed to his arm?”

“Probably not his flatmate. So money, then?”

Sherlock laughed. “Money. The great motivator, perhaps the greatest motivator. So shallow, so obvious. I’m nearly embarrassed it took me so long to figure it out. The first victim was directly involved in the organization, and he had what he believed to be easy access to a large quantity of liquid assets. You may have noticed the stains on his fingers. I was able to…acquire some samples from Bart’s. It was _fluorescent_ ink.” Sherlock gestured to what John now recognized as a UV lamp on the edge of the table.

“Counterfeit,” John said slowly, catching on now. “You think they’re making counterfeit currency.”

“Very good, John,” Sherlock confirmed.

“But then what about the banker?”

“Yes, that connection is slightly more tangled. Patrick Weller had a bit of a history with the organization. In his position, he was in frequent contact with a number of foreign countries and it seems he decided to supplement his already absurd income with the trafficking of government secrets. He was nothing more than a middle man: the interested party would deposit a large sum of cash money into his bank and he would deliver it to the buyer. Then the party could return to collect whatever it was they’d requested. Apparently he’s been on a few of Mycroft’s lists for years, but he was low priority.”

“Why did they need the cash, if they’re making counterfeit money?”

“I can only hypothesize at this point, but I suspect they are about to move a very large sum of money at once. Of course, the recipient of such a bounty would be suspicious and likely to check the authenticity. The real bills will be used to guild the rest, making the whole lot appear to be real.”

“What can we do, then?”

“Nothing, for now,” Sherlock sighed, looking as downtrodden and John felt at that notion. “I’ve outlined a list for Lestrade of the chemicals and machinery needed to produce convincing counterfeit currency, as well as likely hideout locations based on the floor space required for such an operation, plus data gathered from a composition analysis of mud found on Ronald Adair’s shoes. So we wait. Lestrade’s promised to call before making any move. I’d like to be there, when they take down Moran.”

“Me too,” John said darkly, remembering the photographs of Mary he’d sent.

“He’s the last one, you know. The last one that matters anyway. When Moran is gone, I can finally come back. Be Sherlock Holmes again.” He looked at John, expectantly.

John was taken aback for a moment by Sherlock’s expression. Despite the relaxed lines of his mouth and brow, the generally flat expression, he seemed to radiate sadness, as much as if he’d been grossly sobbing. John tried to put himself in Sherlock’s shoes. It was hard to get past the betrayal, but when he had finally, albeit wrongfully, accepted Sherlock’s death, he’d at least been able to move on. To achieve some form of closure, and eventually to look back on their time together with fondness, the painful edges somewhat dulled by knowledge that that chapter of his life had been closed. That there was no going back.

But for Sherlock, it must have been different. Living, moving, acting on his own. His only companions the very criminal underbelly he’d struggled against for years. Stepping into the shoes of the man who’d taken his life away. Although he could hardly match his capacity for brainwork, John knew how Sherlock’s mind functioned, knew the struggles he’d faced during their battle with Moriarty. The awful, haunting similarities between the two men had been obvious even to an outsider such as John. Sherlock never said a word, but John could hear it in every note of his violin, every prolonged silence and read it in his knitted brow and the sad expression when Sherlock thought he wasn’t looking. Sherlock was questioning himself, his motivations, searching for the thing that made him different. That made Moriarty a villain and himself…well, not a hero, exactly, but at least not a villain.

John wondered if he’d found it, but it seemed wrong to ask. Too personal, too soon. He’d wait for the case to end, for things to return to normal, or at least whatever new sort of normal could account for the changes of the past three years. It was enough that he wanted to be Sherlock Holmes again. That he wanted to be Sherlock Holmes _still_.

A phone rang, and Sherlock jumped for his, eager posture sinking when he saw the screen was dim. John fished his own mobile out of his pocket. The number was unfamiliar, possibly work related. John moved to the kitchen before taking the call.

“Hello?”

“John.”

The voice was familiar. So very, very familiar. And his name, spoken by that same voice innumerable times, shouted and whispered in anger or passion. But it had never been spoken quite like this before, all choked up with fear. Never had the syllable been uttered so unwillingly, and never had John been so unwilling to hear it.

“John?” Mary spoke again, this time a note of question discernible through the fear.

“I’m here, Mary.”

But John didn’t feel _here_. Certainly not here, in the kitchen of his suburban house, his home. And not here with Mary, wherever she was. Wherever they’d taken her. He felt like he was nowhere, like the whole world had dropped out beneath his feet and he was floating, suspended in nothingness, and all he could do was fall and fall until he reached the bottom.

Sherlock’s long fingers closed around his hand, easing the phone from his grip and putting it on speaker, all while somehow keeping his eyes fixed on John’s face. John wondered detachedly what his expression might be at that moment and decided that he’d rather not know. Because he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Sherlock look at anything the way he was looking at John.

“I’m waiting,” she said, but somehow John knew that they weren’t her words. “You know where to find me. Please do come alone.”

The line went dead.

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock looked at the phone in his hand, as though it were something unrecognizable, something dangerous. “This doesn’t make any sense. The threat, it was just a distraction wasn’t it? It was part of the game. I don’t…What does he mean? ‘You know where to find me.’ From the mud, maybe? Or from Lestrade’s investigation? But no, the phone call was for _you_.” He looked at John suspiciously. “What do you know?”

“Nothing,” John whispered. “Nothing. I don’t know anything. Oh god!” The volume of his voice had steadily increased, panic setting in, until he was yelling. He lashed out an arm, sending glassware careening into the walls and cabinets, where they shattered on impact.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock placed his hands on either of John’s shoulders and dragged him away from the table, settling him into a chair. He kept his hands in place, a comforting, grounding weight. “He would have been discreet, disguised perhaps. Bolstered by the knowledge that he could get close to you, speak to you even, without drawing any suspicion.”

“I can’t…I don’t think so,” John tried to remember, but he couldn’t. Suddenly, nothing before the phone call seemed real or significant anymore. He tried to picture that morning, kissing Mary before she left for work, but all he could imagine was her tied up, phone held to her lips. Did they have a gun to her head? Or maybe a bomb strapped to her delicate frame, as homage to their fallen leader?

“I’ll get the files. There has to be something. A clue, somewhere. A childhood hang out. Something of significance. This move reeks of sentiment,” Sherlock was muttering to himself as his hurried out of the room, tossing the phone to the table.

John picked up the mobile, turning it over in his hand. He called Mary, but it just rang and rang. As he slipped the phone into his pocket, his fingers brushed against a crumpled wad of paper. John drew it out: it was the five pound note he’d been given by the stranger in the hospital.

Before anything could register on a conscious level, John was reaching for the UV lamp. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be Sherlock, to have a mind which made these connections in such great leaps and on such abstract planes that the body reacted before the brain could catch up.

But of course it wasn’t, because Sherlock would have realized it all _so much sooner_.

Handwritten onto the bill, visible now in the glow of the light was an address that John recognized immediately. It was the apartment he’d moved into when he first left Baker Street. _Something of significance_ , Sherlock had said. And he was right, of course. But, as Sherlock had mentioned all those years ago, on their first case together, there is always _something_ , isn’t there; one tiny, overlooked fact, only this time the entire outcome hinged on it.

The location was a place of significance to _John_. This whole charade: the threats, the carefully designed crime scenes. All for _John_. 

The confrontation was his, too, and would be his alone. John turned off the lamp.


	5. Endgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the man whom the most dangerous man in London had found indispensable; someone charming enough to smooth over the social missteps of his companion, yet deadly enough to protect him from all his numerous enemies. It was a position with which John was all too familiar.

* * *

Moran’s first trip to London had been during the summer of 2008, but his first contact with Moriarty must have been before then, if they’d ever been out of contact, because otherwise he wouldn’t have come to London specifically. Unless, of course, he’d come earlier under a different name, an alias, under the auspices of the US government that didn’t know with whom his true loyalties lay. Yes, that seems far more likely. Moriarty would have tracked him down, or perhaps Moran tracked Moriarty down. Anyway the murder of that cabinet member in 2006 had been suspicious, and Sherlock knew that the so-called assassin, killed in the subsequent shoot out, had merely been a fall guy.

London, though. Either way, any way, they were in London. Because Mary left work just 23 minutes ago, according to Mycroft, but then she stopped at the Tesco 12 minutes ago and became lost in the crowd. And now, lost. Just _lost_. So, two circles on the map: one delineating the walking distance of a man moving at a reasonable pace for 12 minutes, a man unwilling to attract attention whilst still eager to deliver his quarry to a known rendezvous point. And the other, for a vehicle (far more likely, in Sherlock’s opinion), accounting of course for that afternoon’s traffic reports. There wasn’t much of a difference between the two: three city blocks at the most. He scanned the map for likely locations, but it was all residential, albeit in a less-then desirable neighborhood. A neighborhood where residents likely wouldn’t look twice at a frightened women being dragged along by an intimidating man. Just another relationship spoiled by violence or substance, right? As long as they could keep her quiet and Sherlock could think of 27 ways to do just that, none of which he’d ever want for Mary.

But what if…what if they were still in the car when she called? They could be anywhere by now. Well, anywhere within 15…now 16 minutes. And still moving. If Sherlock looked hard at the map he could almost imagine the circles growing, the distance between the two enlarging. Five blocks now. Six.

Somehow he couldn’t imagine Moran and Moriarty working in this section of town. Moriarty would have inhabited an open place with big windows, overlooking Kensington Gardens perhaps; a somewhere sunny, chosen despite its total incongruence to his dark mind or perhaps because of it. No, this was a place for the poor and the sad and the lonely, and Moriarty was none of those things. Insane, yes. Suicidal…well Sherlock supposed he must have been, in a way, although he came to suspect that Moriarty’s last act was not in fact about dying, or even about living. Just about having the correct perspective on his life. That no matter how far his reach, how sharp his mind, none of it mattered without purpose. And some day it would all be gone, and so easily too. The average male skull is only 6.5 mm thick, the same for him as Moriarty. The same for them as anyone else, barring some gross genetic defect.

But he was getting distracted now. 18 minutes, and a vast network of low-rent housing that Moriarty wouldn’t have set one custom-made John Lobb shoe into. A place for the poor and the sad and the lonely. Probably not dissimilar from his desolate haunts of the past three years. It had come as a surprise, how much the loneliness hurt, even though he’d spent a decade alone before John and only two years living with him. He supposed it wouldn’t have been all too surprising a revelation to anyone else, and Sherlock missed that perspective: of being the outsider looking in, rather than so entangled in this mess. If he had been an outsider, probably he could have seen straight through to Moran’s endgame from the start.

_If he had been an outsider, John never would have been the target._

Because that’s what it came down to in the end, wasn’t it? Mary is no one, and Sherlock felt bad thinking this, _knowing_ this, because she is pretty and sweet and she loves John and is good for him. But Mary is no one, and the only value of her life at this moment stems from John’s feelings. John the target, covered in semtex again. Not his body, but his life, and Mary at its hypocenter. _It wasn’t fair._ He left to protect him. He only wanted to protect him.

He called Molly just once, maybe six months after the fall. He listened patiently as she informed him about the goings on in her life (new boyfriend, a barista; Sherlock didn’t tell her that it wouldn’t last, the minimalist description enough to make it abundantly clear that he was intimidated by her intellectually). Really, though, he’d just called to ask about John, and she knew that but sometimes she liked to pretend and Sherlock felt like he owed her, like he still owes her. Molly hadn’t spoken to John, but she heard from Mrs. Hudson that he moved out of Baker Street (Mycroft had already informed Sherlock as such), and one time she saw him outside Bart’s but she didn’t say anything to him. He looked so sad and lonely, she said, that she was afraid she would slip up and tell him the truth.

She wouldn’t, of course. Because she promised Sherlock. But now her voice was fading away, the memory of the phone booth in Potsdam with its vulgar doodles where he’d made the call, replaced with a pleasant blankness. The churning machine of his brain quieted to a bearable hum.

Low-rent dwellings for the sad and lonely. For the ex-soldier trying to escape memories of an ended life. Of Sherlock’s life, and of the life of John-with-Sherlock.

19 minutes.

“John,” Sherlock shouted. When John didn’t answer immediately, Sherlock left, heading for the kitchen where he’d last seen him. “John, where did you move when you left Baker Street?” The kitchen was empty though. Sherlock began systematically canvassing the rooms of the hall, starting with the sunroom. “John? John!”

It wasn’t like him, although Sherlock had also never seen him react the way he had, when he realized Mary had been taken. Was he really going to be hiding in some corner, curled into a ball and unresponsive?

Of course not.

Sherlock stopped his search. The front door was opened a crack, as though it had been slammed with such force that it bounced back, and had Sherlock really not heard that? He supposed not, not when he retreated so far into his mind.

“Idiot,” he growled, although he wasn’t sure whether the sentiment was directed at himself or John. Now he would have to find the two of them. But Mary was the priority, the one in immediate danger. John’s hypocenter. Sherlock had to protect her. He fished out his phone, dialing Mycroft as he exited the house.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on the back of his head, and the world went black.

* * *

The taxi deposited John on an all too familiar street corner, unable (unwilling, really) to traverse the narrow road to his old apartment building. Nothing had changed in the past three years. The same street lights remained broken, the same windows boarded up. Even the trash seemed perpetual, though flattened over time by the tired trudge of passersby. It was hard to believe that this place was once home. He felt as though he’d lived that time, after Sherlock but before Mary, in a strange sort of haze, reality of his situation blurred by the fogs of self-pity and indifference. If he cared enough to look, he could see the same aimlessness in the vacant expressions of his neighbors. But he didn’t care about much at that time, and he certainly didn’t care right now.

He raced down the street, feet hitting the pavement with an audible _thwack_ that echoed between tall buildings. He paused at the door of one, indistinguishable in its shabbiness, singular only to John because he’d entered this building a hundred times. The door was unlocked; in fact, the lock still hadn’t been fixed from the break-in just before John had moved out.

He knew that he should slow down, think of a plan. He should never have left his house without telling Sherlock what he’d discovered. But the note said come alone, and Mary…

Mary.

He took the stairs two at a time, momentum propelling him to the threshold of his old room. This door was unlocked and cracked open slightly, letting out a stream of light. It was strange; he’d never come home to anything in this place, other than an empty apartment. Not even Harry knew where he’d lived.

He pushed open the door.

He left everything when he left this place, except for his clothes and the boxes of Sherlock’s things. The card table where he’d eaten meals, always alone. The electric kettle he’d taken from Baker Street. An end table housing a sad looking lamp, single bare light bulb and no shade. There were only two chairs in the apartment, and both were occupied; Moran sat near the door, gun held deceptively loosely in the hand resting on the table. It was being held pointedly not at anyone, and that casual fearlessness hit John like a punch in the gut.

Mary was in the middle of the room, legs bound, hands tied beneath the seat of the chair. She was looking at John with wide, fearful eyes. “John,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper, or maybe she hadn’t spoken the word at all, just opened her mouth. A trickle of blood dried in a rivulet down her chin where it had escaped her split lip. John hated that she’d bled like that, and no one had thought to wipe it away.

In fact, he hated a lot of things in that moment. It was a powerful, unfamiliar feeling. He wanted to tear the world apart, pull everything out and start over. Put it back together right this time so he can live in a place where someone will always take care of Mary when she bleeds. Even if that someone isn’t himself.

“John,” Moran nodded, rising to his feet. He looked differently than he had in the hospital, though John suspected he simply hadn’t acknowledged the man fully when he’d been just another stranger. Somehow, despite shedding his baggy clothes in favor of a fitted T-shirt, he seemed bigger now, holding himself at military attention. He spoke with an American accent that John couldn’t place with more specificity than Deep South. “So glad you could make it. And you came alone. Surprising, but not unimaginable. Lucky we had a contingency plan.”

John said nothing, letting those last two sentences echo in his mind, frustratingly indecipherable. Moran smiled at his obvious confusion, a genuine smile displaying two rows of crisp, white teeth. “Sebastian Moran,” he said, holding out his empty hand.

This was the man whom the most dangerous man in London had found indispensable; someone charming enough to smooth over the social missteps of his companion, yet deadly enough to protect him from all his numerous enemies. _Well, nearly all of them._ It was a position with which John was all too familiar. He remembered vividly how helpless he’d felt during those periods when suffocating darkness seemed to take hold of Sherlock, when the source of Sherlock’s torment was the very brain he had spent so long sharpening, only to have its point turned on himself. _Danger nights._

John ignored the hand, instead crossing the room in a few short steps to kneel by Mary.

“Did he hurt you?” John asked, though the obvious answer was painted on her face and arms in mottles of black and blue.

“It’s nothing, love,” she smiled. “Oh, why did you come? Why did I ask you to come?” She started to cry softly. John kissed both her cheeks, tasting the saltiness of her tears.

“Watch the ropes, please.”

Mary took in a sharp breath and John turned to find Moran’s gun trained steadily on him, where one of his hands was resting close to Mary’s secured ankle. Still, most of his attention was trained on a cellphone that had appeared in his hand. John heard the door into the building open with a loud bang, as though it had been kicked. Despite knowing it was impossible, John felt a desperate hope that Sherlock had somehow figured it all out, called Mycroft or Lestrade and was now staging a dramatic rescue. After all, if anyone could do that, it was Sherlock. His hope fizzled as quickly as it had appeared, when Moran’s only response to the noise was to smile wider and move the second chair to the center of the room next to Mary’s.

But it was Sherlock, half-dragged in as he stumbled to regain footing, and oh God how John wished that it was anyone else. The left side of his face was covered in blood, hair plastered to his scalp. His right wrist was bent at an impossible angle.

“Gave us a bit of trouble when he woke up in the car,” grumbled the massive man who’d brought him in. He had a small cut under his left eye and a sour expression. He deposited Sherlock in the empty chair and tied his ankles to the legs and arms behind his back, taking care to handle his broken wrist with deliberate roughness. Sherlock let out a cry through clenched teeth, visibly struggling to maintain his usual stoicism. He had his eyes fixed on John, an island of cool blue in the crimson blood that soaked his face. He didn’t look at Moran or Mary, although John suspected Sherlock had seen all he needed in the brief glance over as he was pulled through the door. There was something dreadful about the way he was looking at John, a profound sadness, a fear so atypical that it achieved what John believed to be impossible just seconds before, as Sherlock entered the room: it made him feel _worse_. Moran dismissed the man with a nod.

“Alone at last,” he said, closing the door behind his henchman. “Alone, but for each other. All the players, all the pieces together. It’s good to finally meet you, Sherlock Holmes.” He leaned over the chair, caressing the man’s face with his gun. Sherlock spat blood at him, hitting him square in the chest. Where John knew, professionally, his heart was housed, though it was hard to imagine he possessed such an organ. Moran just laughed. “I’ve heard so very much about you. Figured it all out, now haven’t you? I know you have. I can read it all over your face. You’re clearly as smart as he always said. Shall we see if you’re as stupid as he said as well? Don’t move.”

He was speaking to John now; although he kept his eyes on Sherlock, his gun had moved to point squarely where John stood, posture betraying the desire felt in every limb, every sinew, to fight.

“Don’t move, don’t speak.” There was a quiver in his voice. John could finally see how tightly he was wound; far too tightly for a man with such an obvious advantage, such a well-made and well-executed plan. There was an intense rage, roiling beneath the surface. A desperate rage, the kind that lent motivation and strength as much as it left a man vulnerable. “Tell John, Sherlock. You know the rules, don’t you? Of this little endgame. Have it all figured out, right? Tell him.”

“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock said. “I’m so sorry.” He let his chin fall to his chest.

When it became clear that Sherlock wasn’t planning on speaking more, Moran let out an irritated growl.

“That day on the rooftop, you were given a choice, Sherlock Holmes. Three lives, for your one. It was quite the bargain, but still you wheedled your way out of it, eked out another three years of stolen time. You must have known that I would come for you. You are his unfinished business to me, just as I am his unfinished business to you. And now here we are again, another choice to be made. Clearly you can’t be trusted with such a daunting task, but I’m confident that I’ve found someone who can.” He turned to John, eyes hollowed by the poor lighting. John could see that his whole body was shaking imperceptibly, everything but the hand which held the gun. “Sherlock Holmes’s second-in-command, his soldier. Were you really all that surprised, that I would reach out to you and not to him? We are the puppets whose strings were cut, the dogs left abandoned, bleeding at the side of the road. Did you really think that she could lick your wounds better? That he could come back and brush you off and make everything like it was? That can’t happen. I won’t let it.” He drew up the gun slowly, John holding his breath as it settled on the empty wall behind the seated captives. “If the next word out of your mouth isn’t a name, I’m shooting them both.”

 _Oh. I see,_ was all John could think. A buzzing had started in his head, or maybe it was screaming. Faint, but still managing to drown out all other thoughts, until the only thing left was that terrible comprehension. His vision blurred at its peripherals, narrowing in on the gun, and he felt better for not being able to distinguish the faces of Sherlock and Mary. The gun was maybe eight feet away, Moran around six. He could reach the man in less than two seconds, but that was long enough for him to fire at least one well aimed shot, possibly two. And even if John could disarm him, it’s not like he could take the man in a fight.

“You see, don’t you?” Moran said. “I’m offering you a kindness.”

“John,” Mary’s voice broke through the buzzing, and with that her face fell back into focus. She wasn’t crying anymore, though her face was still flushed and her eyes shining. “John, you need to know. How much I love you and that no matter what, I would never regret choosing you.”

Moran let out a single bark of laughter. “Smart girl,” he sneered. “Pleading your case.”

“No!” Mary interrupted, turning her head to Sherlock. He kept his head down, eyes shrouded behind his curls. “No, that’s not what I meant at all.”

“Hush, Mary. That’s part of the game too. You’ve been fucking him long enough. Why not use your advantage? What about you, Sherlock? What can you offer John Watson?”

Suddenly, Sherlock raised his head, locking his eyes on John’s. Something passed between them, something too real to be just a thought, just another moment of the unspoken understandings that characterized their relationship, though equally intangible. It felt like a gift. John shook his head.

“Please, John,” Sherlock said. “Let me do this for you.”

He just shook his head harder, although not violently enough to break eye contact.

“No, John, no,” Mary was crying again. “You can’t.”

“Times up,” Moran said. He was scowling now, looking between John and Sherlock. “The name.”

“Close your eyes, John.”

He did, and let the buzzing fill his head, swelling in volume like the last note of a song. One last chord, sounding just slightly off, missing its consonance.

“Sherlock,” he said.

And the sound of the bullet cut though everything.


	6. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the ceremony, Sherlock joined them on their honeymoon to the roof of St. Bart’s, but it didn’t seem weird at all.

* * *

“Why?”

It was a choked sound, barely discernible as a word, but there was no mistaking that voice.

John opened his eyes.

Sherlock was strained against his bonds, teeth bared. Next to him, Mary sat unmoving, hair fallen before her face. Only her lips were visible, partly slightly in surprise, in horror, in the words she’d meant to say that had been cut off. Words she could never say. The wound that blossomed from her chest was red. So very, _very_ red. John couldn’t think of a better way to describe it; he’d never seen an analogous shade, at once beautiful and repulsive. The wound still bled steadily, giving the illusion of life where he knew there was none.

His vision dimmed and his legs buckled. When he could think again he was on his hands and knees on the threadbare carpet. He might have been crying, might even having been sobbing, if he were self-aware enough to recognize the heaving spasms in his chest and the wetness on his face. All he could see-- _smellheartastefeel--_ was the redness of the blood and it flowed in tiny rivulets down her form and dripped to the floor. So much redder than anything else.

A sharp pain sent him sideways, and it wasn’t until the second blow landed that John registered the pain as external. Moran’s boot met his side for a third time, with a sickening crack.

“Shallow,” he said, delivering another vicious kick. “Pathetic.” Another. “Weak.” He delivered the kick to his face now, his neck snapping backwards with such force that John wondered if he’d broke it. _Wish he did._ Sherlock inhaled sharply, eyes wide, following their every move. John just lay there, not raising an arm in protest or defense, tears still falling.

“Quit being so dramatic,” Moran said, foot on John’s chest, halting his assault in favor of a steady compressive force that made it impossible for him to inhale more than the tiniest breath. “You’ll be joining her soon enough. Both of you will. Did you really think any other outcome was possible? Did you really think just one of you would be sufficient retribution? I could kill every inhabitant of this filthy city, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Why then?” John coughed out the question, mouth coated with the metallic taste of blood. The doctor in John hoped it was coming from a cut in his mouth, rather than as a consequence of his now broken ribs. The soldier in John knew that it didn’t really matter either way.

“I was curious.”

It was a deceptively simple response, and yet all-encompassing. Could his motives really be so humble? Hardly more substance than Sherlock’s go-to excuse of being bored, and yet this outcome…Was this the result of not caring about life enough, or of caring about one person’s life too much?

Moran’s cellphone rang, and a shadow passed over his expression when he saw the number. He lifted his foot up and took a few steps away, turning his back to them. Under any other circumstances, John would have thought his captive to be cocky, stupid, or both. Of course, under other circumstances he might have been able to stand.

He struggled to sit up on his elbows. For a moment his eyes met Sherlock’s but quickly he looked away. _Ashamed_ , John named the feeling. He’d asked John to do it, offered his life to John. What sort of man was he, to accept such a thing?

Across the room, Moran bellowed, slamming his fist, still holding the gun, through a wall. He threw the cellphone over his shoulder with such force that it cracked the glass of the single, dirty window and broke into pieces.

“You did this!” He shouted, rounding up on Sherlock, who remained silent and gave him a petulant look, lips quirked into a smile. “You ruined everything!” Moran pressed the barrel of the gun to Sherlock’s forehead, and John noticed that his hand was shaking now, and his knuckles were twisted at an odd angle.

“It was me,” John said. They both turned to face him. Sherlock shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but John silenced him with a single look and a slight nod of his head. Slowly, John rose to his feet. “It was simple enough, reasoning out the counterfeit money. You’d at least planned for that much, right? Communicating with the UV pen. How much better did it feel, knowing that you carry on under our noses? We’d be dead of course, but you would know it, would still feel that rush of being almost-caught. When I realized you had Mary, _where_ you had Mary, I knew where Lestrade could find your little operation. And I told him.”

Moran turned his gun on John. “Poetic, right?”

“Yeah,” John agreed.

For a long moment, Moran just looked at him, his expression a mixture of respect and disgust. Finally, he moved, and as his finger tightened on the trigger his whole hand jerked, expression of pain and confusion washing over his features. John reached out quickly, all pain temporarily forgotten. His hand was on the barrel of the gun as it went off, tearing through the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He wrenched the gun from Moran’s grasp, jerking violently as it caught on his broken finger. Before he could get a grip on him himself, Moran tackled him to the ground, letting loose a barrage of wild punches that hit the floor as often as they connected with his face.

 _This is it,_ John thought. _This is where I die._ But he was surprisingly okay with it. He’d fought, at least, and now that Moran’s organization was crippled and maybe Lestrade could get him as well.

Anyway, at least he would die before Sherlock, this time around.

Moran kneeled over him, arms raised triumphantly. He opened his mouth, prepared to deliver final words with this last blow, and a single gunshot filled the room. Moran looked down at John in confusion and tried to speak, but all that came out was a single wet cough. He fell sideways, and behind him stood Sherlock, gun in his left hand. His right was held close to his chest, wrist bent at an even more impossible angle and slick with blood. He collapsed to his knees next to John, letting the gun fall to the floor.

“Nice shot,” John said.

“Lucky shot,” he corrected, voice sounding far away despite his sudden proximity, face swimming in a sea of colors that were mostly red, before everything went black and painless and silent.

* * *

John dreamed a perfect dream. In it, he and Mary were getting married. Sherlock was the best man, and he whispered in John’s ear that the priest was an alcoholic and Mary’s cousin was closeted and the maid-on-honor had slept with two of the groomsmen. This was all fine though, because Mary was perfect and when he asked Sherlock whether that was true he confirmed it with a small nod.

Mary likes classic Doctor Who, Sherlock said. She has two older brothers who taught her to be a vicious rugby player. She once ate an entire jar of peanut butter on a dare and hasn’t been able to stomach it since. She had two serious boyfriends before you. She loved you best, though.

But these were all things John knew already.

After the ceremony, Sherlock joined them on their honeymoon to the roof of St. Bart’s, but it didn’t seem weird at all. John carried Mary in his arms up flight after flight of stairs. He knew that it should have been impossible, but she was so light and she laughed and pressed herself up against him. They took off their shoes and sat at the edge, watching the sunset. Mary put her head on his shoulder.

“This is nice, John,” she said.

“It’s perfect,” he replied. “It’s everything I wanted.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“It’s not real, Mary. None of it is real.”

“Isn’t it?” She laughed, brushing a stray curl out of her face. “I don’t mind, though. No matter what, I would never regret choosing you.”

“It’s time,” Sherlock said, rising to his feet and pulling on his shoes. “Are you ready, John?”

He said nothing. Mary smiled and _tsk_ -ed and worked trainers onto his reluctant feet.

“We’ll meet again,” she said.

“Are you ready, John?” Sherlock repeated, holding out a hand.

“Take care of each other,” Mary said, placing John’s hand in his. It was a different kind of ceremony. Sherlock’s long, white fingers tightened around him and John squeezed back tentatively.

“Always.”

They stepped backwards, John keeping his eyes fixed on Mary, cementing her form, her loose white dress and bare feet in his mind, until finally his trainers met open air, and he was falling, falling…

* * *

When John awoke, his whole body hurt and he couldn’t imagine that it would hurt much more if he’d fallen off St. Bart’s instead. In fact, he couldn’t imagine it would hurt much more if he fallen off St. Bart’s in addition to. Even the faint light that penetrated his eyelids was blinding, and the painkillers didn’t seem to be doing much more than dry his mouth and jumble his thoughts. He cleared his throat lightly, and could sense a flurry of movement at his side.

“John?”

He opened his eyes, squinting against the obnoxious florescent lights. Sherlock was hovering at the edge of the bed, head wrapped in bandages and arm in a cast. Somehow, despite the medical attention, he looked worse now than he had fighting Moran; without the defiant mask, his face was even thinner, eyes tired and expression pained. John tried to sit up, but was greeted with a sharp pain in his side. He hissed and fell back onto the too-plush pillows.

“Careful!” Sherlock said sharply. “You were bleeding internally. They had to operate.”

John let his fingers ghost over his side, feeling the outline of the bandages through his gown.

“How long have I been out for?”

“Three days.”

“Moran?”

“Died on the way to the hospital.”

“Good,” John said. “That’s good.”

They fell into silence; not their usual, comfortable silence of nothing to say or of saying things without speaking. The air was buzzing with their unspoken sentiments and for once, nothing seemed to bridge the gap between them. Sherlock stood, scratching nervously at his palm under the cast.

“John,” he began, speaking in the quick, clipped fashion of a speech painstakingly rehearsed. “I will understand if you’d rather not see me again. I can’t expect you to ever forgive me, but I do hope that you will allow me to offer some small penance. What I mean to say is I want to help as much as possible, to make things easy for you. You may not have realized but I have a great deal of money I’ve inherited. Money I’ve no use for, and I just want to make things easier for you. And you could leave London forever, and I’ll never follow you, you can just―”

“Please, would you shut up?” John said as forcefully as he could, which was still hardly more than a gravelly whisper. “I’m through with running away. I’m through with being angry. I’m moving back into Baker Street. Can you…can you ask Mycroft to get my things? I’m not sure I can go back to the house just yet.”

“Of course,” Sherlock said. “You’re sure?”

John nodded. “Moran was twisted, no doubt about that, but I think in a way he was fulfilling a promise to Moriarty; to live for him, kill for him, and die for him. I will also fulfill a promise for Mary.”

“What promise is that?” Sherlock asked.

_Take care of each other._

John just shrugged. “Pass me my chart, would you?”

Sherlock slipped it off the bedframe and handed it to him. John scanned down the list of injuries, mostly superficial, except the stitches on his hand from where the bullet had grazed him and of course the fractured rib and ruptured spleen. Estimated hospital stay was 1-2 weeks, but John bet he could get out of here in five days if he worked the nurses. They’d given him a mixture of paracetamol and diclofenac for the pain, though not nearly enough of either. He’d have to ask for codeine or morphine, perhaps get a PCA system set up.

“John?” Sherlock asked hesitantly, perching on the edge of the bed. John made a faint noise of acknowledgement, lowering the chart. “How did you know where they were making the counterfeit money?”

John smiled. “Bothers you, doesn’t it? Now you know how I feel about ninety percent of the time.”

“John,” He drew out the name until it seemed to have two syllables, childishness drawing John’s smile wider. When John returned his attention to the chart, Sherlock stuck out his bottom lip and crossed his arms awkwardly despite the cast. John could just make out an illegible signature, recognized nevertheless as belonging to Lestrade, below a poor rendition of a deerstalker. John suspected Sherlock had not been conscious when the vandalism took place.

“I had no idea where his bloody hideout was,” John said without looking up, when he felt Sherlock had suffered enough. “I was bluffing.”

Sherlock stared at John for a long moment, mouth opening and closing uselessly like a fish on land. “You’re incredible,” he said at last. And he started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he slipped off the bed and wound up crouched on the floor, forehead pressed against his cast.

He laughed so hard that he started crying, and then he was just crying.

“Shhh,” John said. He put his right hand over Sherlock’s left, which remained clenched in his bedclothes throughout the ordeal. Sherlock loosened his grip just enough grab hold of two of John’s fingers and squeezed so tightly that it should have hurt, but it didn’t. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

And really it wasn’t, but John knew that it would be. Some day. 


End file.
